Renaissance Fortification in Theory and Practice D

Renaissance Fortification in Theory and Practice 5

THE AURELIAN WALL IN ROME: RENAISSANCE FORTIFICATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

David G. Orr

Fortification, 1489. A defensive work; a wall, earthwork, tower, etc.1 Therefore a prince who has a well-fortified city and does not make him- self hated is secure against attack.2

Most of the fortifications presented in this volume have great debts to pay to the development of Italian Renaissance fortification design. If the Renaissance was the quintessential civilization of cities, then the walls enclosing them and their dramatic redesign after the mid- fifteenth century in Italy mirrored the technological and engineering revolutions that accompanied the new way to wage war, in particu- lar the besieging of urban populations. Certainly these new military weapons, especially those using gunpowder, initiated redesigns for successful urban defense. The large thick masonry walls that verti- cally towered above city streets and buildings could now be laid low by the petard, bombard, or mine. Although this development has been documented in many volumes and theses, much of the fertile design and engineering in this period has been obscured by subsequent fortification practices. Yet we can easily recognize elements of Italian Renaissance design in the structures that appeared in the New World of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The shape and texture of these fortifications suggest a strong semiotic presence as well. Further, the arguments of Sir John Hale and others for an aesthetic appreciation of these structures should not fall on deaf ears.3 Are Renaissance

1 Oxford Universal Dictionary on Historical Principles, 3rd ed., C. T. Onions, ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), 740. 2 Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince. Translated by George Bull ( London: Penguin, 2003), 36. 3 J. R. Hale, Renaissance Fortification: Art or Engineering? (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977). Hale is eloquent in comparing the aesthetic qualities presented by Renaissance fortifications with modern architectural interests in things like grain stores and cooling towers. His argument is reflected by the rise of interest in the fields 6 david g. orr forts simply the products of engineering, or do they also exist as ‘works of art’ every bit as legitimate as the castles of medieval Europe? I would add to this mix the suggestion that these forts also served as symbols of the Renaissance city itself: their geometric shape and their clean and relatively planometric surfaces mirroring philosophical and aesthetic maxims.

The Walls of Rome: A Symbol of the Past

During my stay in Rome from 1971–73 I constantly explored the standing structures and landscapes of that most venerable and seduc- tive of cities. On more than one occasion I traced the circuit of its walls; on one long day I actually accomplished the ramble in twelve long hours. I studied the Roman walls in those days, concentrating on the massive gates and the nature of the aggregate of the walls themselves. By the Porta Pancrazio, I remember discovering a signed base of an Italic black glazed cup which was being battered about by numerous Fiats in the middle of the street. My mentor, Dr. Frank Brown, told me it must have come from the wall. From that experience I realized that the invisible power of the Aurelian Walls was best demonstrated by their construction technologies. This revelation led to a lifelong appreciation of Roman concrete and engineering. To me, the Bastione di Sangallo was a vile aberration; something which horribly broke the line of the Aurelianic curtain and its own sense of symmetry and majesty! Decades later, however, as an archeologist who has studied American Civil War earthworks and ’starforts’ such as Fort McHenry in Baltimore, I now have reversed my position on this matter. I would argue that the Aurelian Wall gives us not only a superb example of the scale of such venerable fortification design but at the same time dramatically contrasts with the ‘modern’ imposition by Antonio de Sangallo. Such massive walls and towers reflect the ‘topless towers of Ilium’ legend in Western European philosophy, literature, and art.

of industrial archaeology and vernacular architecture during the same time. A review by John Bury finds the arguments ‘provocative’ and ’stimulating’; see ‘Renaissance Fortifications: Art or Engineering’, The Burlington Magazine 120, no. 903 (1978): 403–404. Hale reminds us that the ancients (Vitruvius, for one) practiced severe limi- tations on ornament in larger structures. I recall Professor Frank Brown’s interpreta- tion of Vitruvius in his Roman architectural lectures that a column, for example, should support! (my italics).