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Home , Attems, County of Gorizia, Friuli, Gorizia, Villesse

THE FORTRESS OF GRADISCA D’ISONZO

The Isonzo and the Karst region have always been a natural boundary, where the plain ends to the east. In the territory around Gradisca, the presence of some important rock outcrops of karst origin on the terraces formed over thousands of years from the Isonzo, in time offered the ideal settlement for forts. It is conceivable that there is a fortress which was lost as a result of the constructions that overlapped it over time.

Access from the east took place, and still takes place through the so-called "threshold of ", a strip of land between the mountains that leads one from Ajdovščina to the capital of the Isontino and past the Isonzo, to the Friuli plain and thus towards the Italian peninsula. It has always been a strategic place, and for this reason, it has always been contended.

In 181 A.C. Rome began the colonization of these lands by sending 3000 families to implement the land division of the Friuli plain and the construction of . After the first inevitable clashes, the Romans finally found an agreement with the indigenous peoples occupying the plains and left the mountain areas to the Celts or .

The land was thus reclaimed through this land division and houses for the settlers were built. In some cases, the first would have been formed around these settlements, water put into regime, and roads built, one of which, the Gemina, started from Aquileia and led to ().

As on all Roman roads, refreshment stations arose along this road, like on today's highways, and at the eleventh mile it is assumed that the MUTATIO AD UNDECIMUM was built: A refreshment station with an interchange for horses, tavern and market, situated a few miles before the PONS SONTI, the bridge on the Isonzo that once stood at the Mainizza. Archeological finds were discovered in the 20s and in 1936 in countryside around Gradisca. It was not much, but enough to speculate with reliable certainty that MUTATIO was situated on the Mercaduzzo.

What followed next was the fall of the , the barbarian invasions, the arrival of the , devastation, reconstruction and repopulation.

The oldest written document regarding the history of Gradisca is the diploma of April 29, 967 with which the Emperor Otto I assigned the entire territory between the Isonzo and the river to the church of Aquileia. Other mentions of the name Gradisca date back to 1031 in the act of consecration of the renewed Basilica of Aquileia made by Patriarch Poppone and, then, with the confirmation of the assets for the Chapter of Aquileia made on July 20, 1176 by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

1 Through a leap in time we find ourselves in the thirteenth century, when the of Gorizia obtained rights over territories belonging to the , and specifically the Isonzo plain.

Even amid countless episodes of conflict, the church of Aquileia tolerated the presence of the Counts of Gorizia on their land, but in 1420 this delicate balance was broken by the arrival of the Venetians in Friuli, which put an end to the secular patriarchy and the Isontino once again found itself at the center of territorial conflicts.

After an initial, difficult coexistence between the of Gorizia and the , the latter decisively claimed the possession of the territories formerly belonging to the Patriarchate of Aquileia. Clashes inevitably followed, but Venice at that time was a real superpower and the Count of Gorizia renounced all claims.

To add to the difficulties were the first Turkish raids on our territory between 1470 and 1472. In 1473 Venice decided to build a defensive line on the right bank of the Isonzo, from to the sea, and through the Citizen of Frattina project, a pile driven rampart was built and punctuated by the presence of forts or "Bastids" with garrisons ready to intervene in the localities of Mainizza, Farra, Gradisca, Fogliano and .

The people of Friuli were taxed for the implementation of the defense works, however, on October 29, 1477 the Turks, who were probably helped by the Count of Gorizia, crossed the bridge on the Isonzo at Piuma and bypassed the Venetian defenses; at the Groina valley they drew attention from the Gradisca garrison that fell in the ambush once it arrived and was defeated. They perished nearly all the cavalry in battle including the commander Jerome Novello Allegri and his son.

At this point the Venetian Senate decided to build a proper fortress on the Isonzo, taking advantage of the existing "Bastida" of Gradisca, built at the outcropping spurs of karstic rock.

In order to provide safe construction, the Serenissima signed a twenty-year agreement of non-belligerence with the Turks in January 1479, which was solemnly proclaimed in Piazza San Marco on April 25 of that year, and which handed over the Albanian city of Shkodra after suffering two sieges in a brief period of time, and appointed four providers, Domenico Giorgio, Candiano Bollani, Zaccaria Barbaro and Giovanni Emo to trigger the construction of the fortress of Gradisca.

They allocated right from the start of the project the military engineers Enrico Laufer from France and Giovanni Borrella, who initially designed a menagerie for 2400 horses between Gradisca and Fogliano, and in 1483 built a fortress on Mercaduzzo to defend the workers who worked in the construction of the fortress whose project, later , was carried out by Enrico Gallo and Giacomo Contrin, of which the latter was the designer of the Orzinuovi fortress in Brescia (1477), one of the most experienced military engineers the Serenissima possessed.

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The oldest image of Gradisca (from M. Sanudo, “Itinerario per la terraferma veneziana”, 1483)

The construction of this outpost, which functioned as a bulwark towards the east in defense of Turkish raids, also probably had the dual function of contraposition to the Count of Gorizia and later to the Empire.

The stone preserved in the city lapidary contains the following text: GRADISCAM VICULI APPELATIONE TURCORUM INCURSIONIBUS OPPOSITAM CONDIDERE VENETI – Named after the the Venetians founded Gradisca against the Turkish raids.

The fortress of Gradisca is an example of military architecture that we can place between the so-called "transition fortresses" which arose in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, in an era of transformation that saw the transition from the late medieval fortifications , at which time firearms were just beginning to be enforced, to the “modern” fortifications introduced by Giuliano da Sangallo and Francesco di Giorgio Martini, who satisfied the conditions required by the evolution of artillery.

In fact, the outer wall built by the Republic of Venice between 1479 and 1499 is characterized by circular towers, connected by thick walls, while the walls of the castle, built later on, encase the bulwarks within a polygonal form to protect inner building structures.

Until the end of '500, military defense occurred through the only defenses consisting of high and mighty walls and moats and barriers close to the gates, the medieval ramparts included towers and walkways, equipped with slits for the crossfire which was carried out using the bow and crossbows. There were however "dead" corners, i.e. unprotected areas. The walls were suitable to defend themselves from the arrows and catapults (which had a maximum range of 200 m), but ineffective in counteracting against firearms, especially by the artillery, implemented from '500. With a modern bastion fortification, equipped with a

3 support shoe, planimetric angular forms were studied, that eliminated the unprotected angles.

The fortress of Gradisca had a perimeter of 1800 ml, was pentagonal shaped with an irregular pattern to accommodate the rocky outcrops, surrounded by a moat 17 Venetian steps wide, about 30 m, partially powered by the Isonzo and the Roggia canal, the walls, about 22 m high and with a thickness varying between 3 and 4 m, shared seven towers (Torrione della Campana, Torrione di San Giorgio, Torrione del Portello, Torrione della Spiritata, Torrione della Marcella, Torrione della Calcina e Torrione del Palazzo) and two gates.

A third one, named "rescue gate", was built later, during the Archduke's time to be used as an escape route directly on the river or for the provision of supplies during sieges.

The Fortress of Gradisca and San Salvatore – Drawing (Correr Museum, Venice)

4 The Western Gate or Gate of , later the Port of , was directed precisely towards the west, while the Old Port, also called the Farra Gate or Gate of Germany, faced north, was later eliminated and incorporated in the tower St. George; This new arrangement caused the change of the road axis via Lunga that was moved towards the Porta Nuova.

Indeed, tracing a straight line along today’s Via Battisti on the height of the Loggia dei Mercanti, it ends in the tower of St. George inside which the original gate can be found sealed.

An inclined ramp made from backfill was built over the edge of the moat along the whole perimeter, and razed up to the portion of the belt course or string course. This allowed the artillery to strike the area of interest.

The importance of these fortifications is underlined by the presence in all the maps of the time, which are the only reference to document their existence after their leveling to open new spaces to the city. Equipped with dry ditch and counterscarp walls, the ramparts had an irregular shape in relation to the lack of symmetry of the walls. The western ones were quite similar the characteristic design of this type of defense, the rampart of the north side was instead composed of two parts and crossed by the access road which was thus directly controlled. The other sides, towards the Salet, presented minor works indicating the limited possibility of attack by these sides.

From a regular aspect, the urban design is structured as a Roman "castrum" and consisted of five main streets intersecting at right angles, wide enough to facilitate military maneuvers, and more narrow streets that linked to them.

Among them were 9 housing islets with houses made of standardized form with just over 95 square meters in accordance with the Venetian stride, a module of about 1.73 ml, eight paces long and four wide, large enough to contain eight horses. And whose height could not exceed that of the walls.

Between 1479 and 1483, 97 homes were built in a short time and thus Gradisca was nominated a city in 1481. In 1483 the Padri Serviti settled there and in 1486 the first pharmacy was opened.

On 28 September 1499 the Bosnian cavalry led by Scanderbeg crossed the Isonzo once again. They camped at Villesse where they had forded the river thanks to the ''help” of a boatman, named Ermagora. The Venetian garrison, which was considerably outnumbered by the Turkish forces, did not come out from the fortress to counter them.

The Turks were always less present beneath the walls of Gradisca and instead went on undisturbed all the way until the outskirts of Treviso, devastating and burning the villages, as is well described in Pierpaolo Pasolini’s opera "I Turcs tal Friul", and after having

5 massacred some 12,000 people, they returned back to camp at Villesse again with the loot and numerous prisoners.

The soldiers of the garrison present at the Fortezza, many of which were originally from Scutari, urged the administrator to intervene, but Andrea Zancani came up with the famous phrase "... non voglio fàrme mazàr..." (“I do not want to get myself killed”).

The Turks returned to the lands of Bosnia with the loot and prisoners, the boatman Ermagora was tried and executed for treason and Zancani was condemned to perpetual banishment from Friuli and sent to forced residence in Padua for four years.

The fortress of Gradisca, which cost the population so much effort and taxes, watched inert to that which was the last of the dramatic Turkish raids in the Friuli plain.

In 1500, under the threat of a new Turkish incursion, the Republic of Venice sent Leonardo da Vinci to Gradisca in order to reinforce its borders. He gave useful suggestions to improve the architecture of the fort and planned a system of mobile barriers designed to flood the Isonzo plain in case of an invasion of the territory. There is documentation of this visit in the Codex Atlanticus.

Another important event of 1500, in , was that Leonardo died. He was the last Count of Gorizia and all his domains passed to the House of . Now Venice had to deal directly with the Imperial Maximilian I of Habsburg that shortly thereafter, in 1508 signed the agreement of Cambrai which joined Louis XII of France, Ferdinand II of Aragon, Alfonso d'Este, Duke Charles III of Savoy and Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua with whom they formed a league headed by Pope Julius II to stop the expansion of the Venetian Republic on the mainland.

According to experts the fortress could withstand the siege for years, but in 1511, on the sidelines of the War of the League of Cambrai, the Imperials, after having conquered other Venetian fortresses in Friuli area, turned their attention to Gradisca.

The fortress was violently attacked and with no connections to the rest of the army, it could not withstand the impact of incessant bombardments. Moreover, there was an outbreak of a plague inside the fortress. Despite a strenuous resistance, the fortress was thus forced to surrender.

Beyond that, there is a curious and probably decisive episode; the noble Antonio Savorgnan of had entered the fortress. He was a dark character already involved in the dramatic events of the " crudel zobia grassa ", and suspected of being in league with the Imperials. So Savorgnan was able to persuade the commander Alvise Mocenigo that the besieging forces were so strong that any form of defense would have been in vain. The siege began September 20, 1511 and just six days later the fort surrendered to the Imperials.

Once lost, Venice was never again able to repossess the fortress of Gradisca. Diplomatic attempts, cash offers and threats were all futile at getting it back.

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Reproduction from Weisskönig of Maximilian I° - 1513

Ten years later, in 1521, the peace of Worms definitively handed over Gradisca to Austria: for the Imperials, this outpost on the right of the Isonzo became strategically important insomuch that they gave way to strengthening and improvement works and, therefore, the city in addition to military and administrative functions, became the seat of a captaincy with special prerogatives of autonomy which detonated frequent conflicts of competence with Gorizia. In particular Gradisca could maintain to keep in force until 1754, the Consuetudines Gradiscanae, a collection of customary rights elaborated in 1575 by the jurist Giacomo Garzonio. 7 In the period between 1512 and 1582, under captaining by Niccolò della , Giovanni de Hojos e Giacomo d', the castle on the hill closer to the river was built: the whole complex of the castle was built as a self-defensive core according to updated dimension drawings of modern fortresses, in which the palace of the captain and the arsenal were built, as well as a well which was dug in the rock.

The efficient system of external fortifications, built by the Venetians in the seventeenth century was greatly improved and would remain unchanged for a long time. The moat was now protected by a counterscarp and, moreover, three "ramparts" had also been built on the north-western side, the most vulnerable side because it faced the countryside, and one on the northeastern side of the adjacent San Giorgio tower, still legible in the design of the countryside towards Salet.

The vagueness of the boundary line along the Isonzo river and the difficult definition of jurisdictions, where many feuds of Gradisca district depended on the church of Aquileia and consequently by the Venetian republic, could not help but fuel the continuation of a state of tension between Austrian and Venetian territories that continued to be under the threat of Turkish invasion.

In 1593, Venice began the construction of the fortress of , ostensibly to counter the still existing Turkish raids (though it should be noted that after 1499 the Turks were no longer seen around here, concentrating their raids in the north towards Austria), but in reality with deterrent functions against the Imperials, who saw the building of Palmanova as a threat.

The pretext that at the end of 1615 provoked the outbreak of the conflict between Venice and the Archducal was the series of raids and acts of piracy that the Uskoks exercised to the detriment of the Venetian trade, under substantial protection from Austria. The Venetian and Austrian armies now gathered in the area along the Isonzo, an area already fraught with tensions.

After occupying the whole area on the right of the Isonzo, from Aquileia to , Venice declared war against the Habsburgs. The Archduke armies led by Adam Earl of Trautmannsdort unfolded on the Collio and Carso in defense of Gorizia and the fortress of Gradisca, of which Richard of Strassoldo was appointed captain. He reorganized the defense by ordering other works of fortification and modernization of the walls and the demolition of any building in front of the walls, as well as cutting down the vegetation.

The Venetian troops were led first by Pompeo Giustiniani and, after his death, by Giovanni de' Medici. In the first months of 1616 Venetians concentrated their attack against Gradisca, which was besieged and then the front widened along the banks of the Isonzo, Collio and Carso. The vicissitudes of the war saw first the Venetians occupy almost the entire and then after many recoveries the Archduke armies spread in Friuli.

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Wars of Gradisca: battlefields on the low Isonzo – Keller 1617

During the siege, the fortress was severely damaged, especially the north side, and at the end of the war the towers of San Giorgio and Campana, together with those of the Marcella tower were particularly damaged. The Venetians tried to take back the fortress of Gradisca and rendered the provision of food supplies difficult. In the fall of 1617 following the isolation in which the Venetians had reduced Gradisca, by building a fence, a bridge of boats on the Isonzo and of a system of trenches that surrounded the fortress. The latter appeared deprived of water, food and firewood.

The final attack, which had already been arranged by the Venetians to successfully conclude the siege, was blocked on November 6, 1617 by the order to suspend the fighting. On 24 June 1618 the Peace of Madrid ended the conflict, leaving the fortress to Austria and engaging the latter to control the Uskoks.

I Commentari della guerra moderna passata nel Friuli (The Commentaries of modern war in Friuli), and ne' confini dell', e di (in the boundaries of Istria and Dalmatia) by Biagio Rith of Colenberg, from the Archduke’s side, and Historia della ultima guerra nel Friuli 1615-17 (the History of the last war in Friuli 1615-17) by Faustino Moisesso, from the Venetian side, testify to the centrality that the possession of the fortress had in the conflict, noted by the definition “Guerre Gradiscane” ("Wars of Gradisca").

After the Thirty-Year War, the Austrian finances were in very poor condition due to the high costs of the conflict. So the Captaincy of Gradisca was immediately elevated to a sovereign princely county, and this made the sale of the same county desireable to the

9 wealthy family of Eggenberg, who already had possessions in and , the Duchy of Kramau /Českŷ Krumlov, the county of Adelsberg /Postojna, the lordship of Mahrenfels / Lupoglavo in Istria and fifteen other lordships in Bohemia.

In 1647, The house of Austria gave up Gradisca and all its appurtenances for 315,000 florins, about fifty locations scattered around the region like leopard spots, to Giovanni Antonio of Eggenberg who was supposed to handle the maintenance costs of the fortress, as well as repair the damage of the past war and maintain a military garrison.

View of Gradisca (Castle of Českŷ Krumlov – Czech Republic)

Buying Gradisca guaranteed the right to the Eggenberg family, as the Gradisca territory was elevated to immediate dominion, to sit with voting rights at the Imperial Diet of Regensburg, in a position that sanctioned it superiority compared to most other nobles Austrians.

During the so-called Eggenberg period, Gradisca became the capital of an independent state. It was endowed with its own laws, its own parliament and its own currency. It was the most prosperous period in its history, marked by industrial facilities, and major changes to the architecture of the city. Many buildings were transformed and raised or replaced by large buildings, also through mergers, as in the case of Palazzo Torriani formed through the merger of three existing buildings, whose stylistic references draw to a rustic order, which highlights the massive and severe character of the palaces of Gradisca whose

10 reference points are identified in the late Mannerist and Venetian civil architecture.

The Eggenbergs ruled the "supreme and immediate Princely County of the Empire" for seventy years and the death of the last descendant occurred in 1717, at which time Gradisca returned under the control of the House of Austria.

Map of the Fortress and the historical centre – End sec. XVIII

During the seventeenth century, the strategic importance of Gradisca began to wane and on July 13, 1754 the unification with the County of Gorizia took place, with the formation of the "Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca". The provincial states of Gradisca were absorbed by the Convocation of Gorizia and the Consuetudines Gradiscanae was repealed.

The fortress had a last tremor during the when, for a short period, it resumed its defensive role during the siege of the French, led by General Bernadotte, and subsequent capitulation took place on 19, 1797.

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Napoleon Bonaparte once conquered the city and stayed at the mansion of the de Fin noble. In May the same year the French left Gradisca and in October, after the Treaty of Campoformido, the city came under Austrian rule once again until 1805. Then, from 1807 to 1815, it became part of the Italian Kingdom. On December 1, 1807 it was elected to be the capital of one of the four districts in which the Department of Friuli Udine was divided into: , Cividale and precisely Gradisca. It became the seat of a first-class deputy prefect and had jurisdiction over the cantons of , Cervignano and Palmanova.

In 1810 a decree by S.A. Eugene de Beauharnais, viceroy of Italy, sanctioned the cancellation of the fortress from the list of strongholds and Gradisca, which by now was considered antiquated, was relegated to the defensive structures of the fourth class, loading the municipality with the burden of keeping the structures efficient which, in most part, were degraded and abandoned.

During the French period the Torriani palace, which is currently the town hall, housed the Viceroy of Italy, Eugene de Beauharnais, 's stepson, and it was here where the famous appeal "To the people of Italy" was issued on October 11, 1813.

After the of 1815 Gradisca returned to Austria and the castle became a prison for prisoners being sent to Spielberg: among these the most famous were Maroncelli, Confalonieri and Pellico.

Starting from 1830, Gradisca proposed an initial request to the Austrian Government to take down the entire stretch of the western fortifications in order to open the city to the countryside, but the caution imposed by the presence of a maximum security prison prevented the Habsburg authorities to grant consent.

Finally in 1855, after more insistent demands the wait was granted authorization by Feldmaresciallo Radetzky, and in 1863 the demolition of 370 ml of the wall section began, 12 which affected the Port of Italy and the Torrione del the Palazzo up to the Torrione della Campana. The ramparts were leveled and other smaller buildings that stood outside. The moat was filled and the entire city walls along the whole perimeter were lowered with the exception of two northern towers.

The area obtained by the levelling, according to the constraints imposed by the Austrian Government, and contrary to the wishes of the local rulers, was to be used exclusively for gardens and parks, and so it was.

However the old urban center did not change its exterior appearance, continuing to appear as if it were still enclosed by the perimeter whose shape does not have precise meanings if not those dictated by a logic related to present facts and the need to be close in a protected fence. The fortress finally lost its defensive function but on the other hand it obtained the large green space which has been welcoming visitors to the city since 1866.

During the First World War Gradisca found itself at the forefront of the 12 Battles of the Isonzo and suffered many bombings. There were many fellow citizens enrolled with the Austro-Hungarian army and fought in Galicia and on the Serbian front. Other volunteers enlisted in the , including Antonio Bergamas who fought on the Karst and later died on the plateau of Asiago. His mother was identified for the selection of the "Unknown Soldier" coffin which was then transported to the “Altare della Patria” (Altar of the Fatherland) in Rome. At the end of the war, Gradisca was annexed to Italy.

In the Second World War, after the Armistice of September 8, 1943, it became part of the "Adriatic Seaboard" until the liberation of 30 April 1945. It was subject to the Allied Military Government from 12 June 1945 to 15 September, 1947.

Piazza Unità d’Italia with the Lion of San Marco 13 The Lion of San Marco, the symbol of the Venetian Republic, still towers over the column in the center of the Piazza Unità (Unity square) , as well as on the Campana tower reflecting the link between the town by the Isonzo and the Republic of Venice.

Due to its history and for its architecture, the town of Gradisca d'Isonzo is currently inserted in the "Club of the Most Beautiful Boroughs in Italy" and in 2014 it hosted the national congress of this association.

Through the local Lions Club, the municipality is counted in the '"International Association of Lions Club who are based within Ancient Walls of a City Perimeter" and is also associated with the "Consortium for the Protection of Historical Castles of ".

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