La fortaleza medieval de Isso (Albacete) y su territorio

This paper presents some of the information obtained during the archaeological surveys carried out in 2019 in the stately fortress known as Torre de Isso, located in the municipality of Hellín (Albacete). These fieldworks have attempted to answer some questions related to the historical interpretation of the preserved monumental remains, specifically two large towers and some walls from the second half of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The initial study and graphical documentation were carried out to obtain the data needed to draft a conservation project in line with current scientific criteria.Extending the investigation to the whole neighborhood of houses that surrounds the towers resulted in the discovery of a quadrangular fortress of 44 x 42 m, which incorporates the towers and in which different construction phases have been identified, certainly prior to and subsequent to the Christian conquest. The remains found were reused in the load-bearing walls of some of the houses. Beside the fortress, we extended the study to the entire village of Isso, in order to find out if the medieval castle had an annexed relevant village. Finally, the surveys expanded throughout the entire territory of Isso, with the desire to know if its characteristic dispersed settlement, made up of small farmhouses, and its traditional irrigation system, have a medieval origin.This multidisciplinary research project has allowed us to obtain extensive data and produce significant information, although it should be noted that many issues and some of the interpretations offered in this article are still hypothetical. Therefore, only future development of additional archeological and historical works will make it possible to tackle those questions that remain to be answered.

Architetture difensive nelle valli dello Ziz e del Todhra in Marocco

Defensive architecture in the Ziz and Todhra valleys in MoroccoThe earthen architecture of the Todhra and Ziz Valleys in Southern Morocco takes us back to the basic and archetypal forms of building in the Mediterranean. Architectural typology and language together form a cultural background that is strongly rooted in the territory and its inhabitants: the Berbers. The architectures, fragile and in constant decay, represent a treatise of living architecture in which the shapes, proportions and decorations are repeated over time with continuity.This research tries to verify, with data coming from direct and instrumental surveys, the quality and diffusion of the architectures that dot the valleys of the Todhra and the Ziz which, at same time, host the population and defend the most precious asset: water. Along the valleys, united by the same language, we find: igherm, fortified citadels; tighremt, fortress houses.

Traces of a fortified hamlet. Iconography and urban development of San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore

The paper proposes a reading of the possible urban development of the historic centre of San Valentino in Abruzzo Citerore starting from the analysis of its architectural heritage. The image of a fortified hamlet surrounded by walls, represented in a painting dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, appears in cartographic reliefs and representations accessible at the local and extra regional archives. The reading of the current architectural set of givens, which are characterized by the continuous use of building techniques related to the processing of local limestones, seeks through comparison with the historic iconography to identify persistences and alterations of the urban fabric, tracing a possible developmental line of San Valentino in Abruzzo Citeriore from medieval castrum to Farnesiano fief up to the substantial interventions of modernization and revision of the historic center operated in the last century. The requests of functional and formal changes occurring at the turn of the nineteenth and twenteeth century implicates the dismantling of the walls, the typological change of the original building and of the urban layout and the loss of the urban imagine resulting consolidated in the collective memory. An awaking context of the main features of the historic and building development of this fortified reality in the Middle Adriatic area is today an indispensable step in this path of consciousness and awareness of the society regarding the urgent problem connected to the neglect and to the conservation of the historic centres.

Il castello Colonna di Arnara: dal restauro del monumento alla valorizzazione del borgo antico e del suo territorio

The castle Colonna of Arnara: from the restoration of the monument to the enhancement of the ancient village and its territoryThe castle of Arnara, is located in Ciociaria in southern Lazio, in what was once the feud of the Conti of Ceccano. For the territory it is the most important monumental complex of medieval architecture. In fact, despite its small size, it is one of the few examples of fortified architecture still original in its essential lines. This castle represents an exceptional case of sedimentation and stratification, which even today, from its reading, allows us to reconstruct both its historical events and those related to the urban development of the adjacent historic village. Moreover it can be considered of priority importance also from the urbanistic point of view because it represents the first historical nucleus of Arnara. Unfortunately, today, the castle is in a bad state of conservation. With the passing of time its conditions have become more and more aggravated also because of the complex events linked to the various passages of property, of private and public nature, which have strongly influenced the management of the monument. The study of the castle of Arnara is part of the national and international debate that considers participation a key factor for the sustainable enhancement of the cultural heritage, because it promotes greater awareness of its social and economic value. The objective of the research work is to develop, taking the castle as a case study, a new approach that sees cultural heritage (tangible and intangible) as an irreplaceable heritage of knowledge and as a precious resource for economic growth, employment and social cohesion; therefore a cultural heritage seen as a driving force. In the specific case of Colonna Castle, attention has been focused on the importance of being able to activate virtuous circles around this very important place of culture, enhancing its role as a centre of knowledge and incubator of creativity and social innovation.

Las técnicas constructivas en las murallas medievales de Almería

Building techniques in the medieval walls of AlmeríaAlmería was one of the most important cities in al-Andalus, a circumstance that was possible thanks to the strength of its port. Its foundation as an urban entity during the Caliphate of Córdoba originated a typical scheme of an Islamic city organized by a medina and a citadel, both walled. Subsequent city’s growths, due to the creation of two large suburbs commencing in the eleventh century, also received defensive works, creating a system of fortifications that was destined to defend the place during the rest of the Middle Ages. In this work we will analyse the construction techniques used in these military works, which cover a wide period from the beginning of the tenth century until the end of the fifteenth century. Although ashlar stone was used in the Caliphate fortification, in most of these constructions bricklayer techniques were used, more modest but very useful. In this way, the masonry and rammed earth technique were predominant, giving rise to innumerable constructive phases that in recent times are being studied with archaeological methodology, thus to know better their evolution and main characteristics.

La influencia de Pedro Luis Escrivá en el sistema defensivo colonial de América

The influence of Pedro Luis Escrivá in the American colonial defense systemThe architect and military engineer Pedro Luis Escrivá (1490 ca. - sixteenth century), at the service of Charles V of Habsburg and the Viceroyal Court of Naples, built two bastioned fortifications designed to considerably influence the subject of territorial defense structures: The quadrangular Spanish Fort of L'Aquila (1534-1567) and the reconstruction of the Sant’Elmo Castle in Naples (1537), with an elongated six-pointed stellar plan, served as a reference point for the European and American fortifications of the period. Due to its size and versatility, the model adopted in L’Aquila was widely used in the Latin American context between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. It is found in countries that were Hispanic colonies such as Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay; as well as in the Hispanic domains of the United States and in some of the dependent territories of the Portuguese crown, in Brazil. Based on a historical-architectural and contextual analysis of these structures, the effects of the “cultural transfer” between Europe and America will be investigated with respect to the model devised by Escrivá to promote its cultural valorization.

Évaluation de degré de défense de l’architecture défensive pré-coloniale en Algérie : cas des villages fortifiés

Assassing the defensibility of the pre-colonial defensive architecture in Algeria: case study on the medieval fortified villagesAlgeria’s pre-colonial towns of the medieval period still exist in different typologies, ranging from the isolated buildings (forts, castles) and town enclosures to whole urban units (fortified villages, defensives towns). Indeed, the constituent of these fortresses was their defense system, characterized by its large dimension, constituted essentially by the enclosure wall, and architectural features of defensiveness correlated with the outside and the inside of the fortresses. This paper aims to evaluate the relationship between physical landscape, built defensive features and cultural values of the medieval fortified villages in Algeria, two medieval fortified villages in our case “Kalaa of Beni Abbes” in Bejaia and “Kalaa of Beni Rached” in Oran, that we identified as an evolved landscape and interpreted as complex system (both defensive architecture and continuing cultural landscape). This current study consists of quantifying the defensiveness degree of these sites situated within different contexts, in fact, this method ensures to identify the strategy adopted to be protected against different invasions. However, in order to achieve this we calculate a spatial defensiveness index (DI) of these sites. The parameters of our choice are related to the implantation site, the elevation, the visibility and the geometrical shape, which allow us to estimate the defensiveness degree of the defense system of our case studies.

Il pentagono come strumento per il disegno delle fortezze

The pentagon as a tool for fortresses’ drawingStarting from the fifteenth century, the diagram of many fortresses has a pentagonal shape. Among the best known fortresses, in Italy we find the Fortezza da Basso of Florence, the Cittadella of Parma, the Cittadella of Turin, Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. The aim of this article is to analyze the reasons that link form and geometry to the planning of the design and the layout of pentagonal fortresses. The pentagon is a polygon tied to the golden section and to the Fibonacci sequence and it is possible to construct it starting from the golden triangle and its gnomon. This construction of the pentagon is already found in the book De Divina Proportione by Luca Pacioli and is particularly convenient for planning pentagonal fortresses. If one wants to draw the first approximated golden triangle, one can just consider the numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, for example 5 and 8, which establish the relationship between the sides: 5 units is the length of the base and 8 units the length of the equal sides. In the second isosceles triangle, which is the gnomon of the first, the base is 8 units long and equal sides are 5 units long; half of this isosceles triangle is the Pythagorean triangle (3, 4, 5). This characteristic of the golden triangles, that was already known by the Pythagoreans and, in a certain sense, contained in the symbol of their School, allows to build a pentagon with only the use of the ruler and the set square. The distinctive trait of the construction just described makes preferable to use the pentagon in the layout of the military architectures in the fieldworks. We have verified the relationship between numbers, shape and size in the layout of Castel Sant’Angelo (1555-1559) in which the approximate pentagon was the instrument for the generation of its form.

Integrazioni multidisciplinari: storia, rilievo e rappresentazioni del castello di Palmariggi in Terra d’Otranto

Multidisciplinary integrations: history, survey and representations of the castle of Palmariggi in Terra d’OtrantoThe contribution integrates historical readings, conducted through archive documents and iconographic materials, with surveys and graphical analyzes carried out through direct knowledge of Palmariggi’s historic center in Salento. The imposing Aragonese castle of which today only the two cylindrical towers remain, joined together by a stretch of perimeter masonry, initially presented a quadrangular plan with four corner towers, of which three are cylindrical and one is square and was surrounded by an existing moat, until the middle of the twentieth century, with a wooden drawbridge on the eastern side. The fortress was part of a strategic defensive system, designed to protect the village and the productive Otranto’s land with which it was related. The fortified Palmeriggi’s center represented an important defensive bulwark placed within the network of routes and agricultural activities that led from the hinterland to the port of Otranto, where flourishing trade took place. The research examines the changes undergone by the defensive structure that has had several adaptations made initially in relation to changing military requirements, resulting from the use of firearms, the upgrades that were supposed to curb the repeated looting and the military reprisals against the inhabited coastal and inland centers of Salento peninsula, and later social that led to the expansion of fortified village with Palazzo Vernazza’s (eighteenth century) adjacent construction and the original parade ground’s elimination. Summing up, the contribution in addition to documenting the current situation with integrated surveys, the state of preservation of fortified structure with its village, of which it examines the urban evolution based on the construction, typological and morphological systems, relates to the surrounding territory by comparing the plant of the ancient nucleus with that of neighboring fortified Salento’s centers. Finally, digital study models allow fortified structure’s three-dimensional analysis, its construction techniques, assuming the original shape.

Fujian earth castles. Knowledge and typo-morphological analysis for the protection and design of the study case: Yue Zhuangzhai

The work of documentation of part of fortified architecture in rammed earth and wood, typical of Fujian region in south-eastern China, represents the start of a research and cooperation project between DiCEM Department at Università degli Studi della Basilicata and Fuzhou University, determined by a MAECI co-funding project named “Youth Exchanges”, for the cultural mobility of Italian and Chinese students1. Generally, three types of fortified vernacular architecture can be found in Fujian region, China: Tulou, Tubao (soil castle), and Zhuangzhai. Even though they are all residential buildings built in rammed earth, they are different historically, geographically, functionally and typologically.