Arx Journal Volume 5 2008

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE

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ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE

CONTENTS ISSUE V 2008 2. French Military Architecture in the Maltese Islands Stephen C Spiteri 8. Discorso del Gozo et Sua Fortificatione: Two reports by Giovanni Rinaldini Anconitano Godwin Vella 12. The Art of Fortress Building in Hospitaller Malta Stephen C Spiteri 18. Insular sentinel: St Mary Tower, Comino Stephen C. Spiteri 21. Water and Hospitaller Fortifications Stephen C. Spiteri 24. Alcune Riflessioni sulla ricostruzione del luogo forte di Mdina a Malta dopo il terremoto del 1693 Denis de Lucca 33. Documenting fortifications and military structures through physical surveys and archival research Paul C. Saliba 39. Castles and fortresses of Rhodes Stephen C SPiteri 49. Publication of research 50. Active links to projects, documents, books and resources on the web 51. Fortification news on the web Front Cover illustration: Sea-front of Wied Mousa Coastal Battery, Marfa.

This page: Grand Master d'Aubusson instructing Rhodian workmen on the fortifications of Rhodes (after Caoursin).

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ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE

ARX - FORTRESS EXPLORER ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE Image courtesy of Miranda Publications

Editorial In recent years, most studies of fortification have tended to shift away from the fortress to focus, after a fashion, on its armament and garrison life. This increasing fascination with fortress armament, garrison drill, and socalled 're-enactments' - although undeniably necessary to provide a fuller picture of the wider context and workings of gunpowder fortifications - has now, in many instances, reached the point where interest in the fortress itself, as a structure, has all but been set aside and the fortress reduced merely to a backdrop. Many forget, however, that before any fortress was put to use, it had first to be built, and the skills that were required to plan, design, and build a fortress were not the same as those that were necessary to defend it. No proper understanding of the subject of fortification, therefore, can exist without an understanding of the fortress as a structure, of the fortress as a work of

FRENCH MILITARY ARCHITECTURE IN THE MALTESE ISLANDS

By Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Ph.D. A two-day seminar was held in Valletta to commemorate the trecentary anniversary of Vauban’s death and his influence on the fortifications in Malta.

This seminar was organised by the Embassy of France in Malta, the International Institute for Baroque Studies (UOM) and the Ministry for Resources and Infrastructure.

architecture and engineering. The recent exhibition organized jointly by the Fortress Explorer Society (FES) and the National Library of Malta (The Art of Fortress Building in Hospitaller Malta) sought to refocus the attention of scholars, researchers, and the public on the very art and science of fortress construction.

We at FES believe that there is much more to the study of fortification than dressing up and playing at soldiers, and firing blank cannon charges. It's called MILITARY ARCHITECTURE and it has a gravitas that goes beyond the world of ' infotainment'.

Therefore, FES is committed to diffusing a proper understanding of military architecture to as wide an international audience as possible. All issues of ARX, now in PDF format, are downloadable and printable, free of charge. In this world of ever-increasing commercialization of cultural heritage, where

When Napoleon Bonaparte entered Valletta on the 12th of June 1798 , he is said to have been astonished by the ‘power of resistance’ of the vast system of fortifications which had fallen to him so easily with hardly a shot being fired and was thankful that the knights no longer hand men of the calibre of Jean de Valette to defend it.

Ironically this ‘power of resistance’ so evidently manifest in the mighty ring of ramparts and bastions owed much to French influence, for French military engineers and their ideas had been at work in the Maltese islands ever since Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban began to give France the lead in the development of military architecture in the latter half of the seventeenth century. The appearance on the local scene of distinguished men like Louis Nicolas de Clerville, Louis Viscount de Arpajon and Blaise François Count de Pagan not only marks the decline of the Italians as leading exponents in the art of fortress

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even NGOs are fast becoming profit-oriented businesses ready to exploit both professional researchers and students alike for a quick buck, it is refreshing to find websites that provide educational material and resources free of charge. ARX tries to bring many of these online resources to your attention with direct links. We are also proud that both ARX and the FES Website itself fall within this category.

Editor: Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Ph.D. Historians and researchers wishing to publish their studies in this journal are invited to submit their articles in word format together with illustrations to the Editor via e-mail at (arxsp639@maltanet.net). All papers and illustrations published in ARX are subject to copyright and may not be copied in any manner without prior consent of their rightful authors and editor.

The design and layout of ARX, unless where specifically stated otherwise, are the copyright of FES.

Marshal Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban

building but also signals the shift of the Order from the imperial into the French sphere of influence.

From around the mid-1600s onwards Frenchmen like Mederico Blondel,

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE Claude de Colongues and François Bachelieu were finding employment in the Order but the real connection came when Grand Master Perellos turned to France in his search for military assistance following the emergency of 1714, when the Island was being threatened with attack by the Turks.

The generous French response was as much a case of real politik as it was a calculated act of propaganda. Along with French guns, cannon, and munitions, and the promise of troops, came also a corps of French military advisors. From now on, France and not Spain, would be the patron and protector of the Order.

The French military mission was headed

by Brigadier René Jacob de Tigné. At the time he was then one of the most experienced engineers in France with 26 years service. Later in 1720, he would be appointed to the post of director of fortifications in Charlemont, and then transferred to a similar position in La Rochelle where he remained until his death in 1730. Assisting him as second in command, was Charles François de Mondion. The group also included the ordinary engineers Delafon, Grillot de Predelys, D’Artus, and Philip Maigret.

Various other engineers, such as Megreill, arrived in the retinue of the

Text by Dr. Stephen C. Spiteri Photography by Enrico Formica

CLICK PHOTO TO ACCESS WEBSITE

Prior of France, Philip de Vendôme.

Among the latter, the ablest of these was undoubtedly Maigret – his Traite de la sûreté et conservation des etats par le moyen des forteresses, which was published in Paris in 1725, became the standard work on the strategic importance of forts used at the École de Meziere, the French military school of engineering. Maigret remained in Malta until August 1716 in order to supervise the construction of coastal defences.

Likewise remaining on the Island after the departure of Tigné, was Mondion, who was entrusted with supervising the day-to-day work on the fortifications before eventually being called back to France in 1719.

The knights were reluctant to lose Mondion and admitted him into the Order as a knight of grace. The Grand Master then sought to secure his return in order to serve as the resident engineer. Perellos’ wish was granted and Mondion was employed as ingegnere della religione in January 1721. He served the Order faithfully until his death in December 1733.

Mondion’s eighteen years of service represent the most important and intense period of fortress-building activity in the Island’s history. His involvement also extended to the civil

MIRANDA PUBLICATIONS 326 x 322 mm 170 pages ISBN 978-99909-85-34-4

Fortress Malta 360° is a publication that focuses all its attention on the military architecture of Malta. It seeks to capture a representative cross section of the great diversity of shapes, forms, and textures that make up Malta’s unique military architecture ensemble. It does so by playing on the visual power of military architecture, Vitruvius’

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Grand Master Perellos.

sector where his considerable architectural skills and aesthetic feeling contributed greatly to the embellishment of many Baroque palaces and churches, particularly in the old city of Mdina, which was largely renovated during the magistracy of Manoel de Vilhena (1722-1736).

Between them, these French experts would effectively reshape the Order’s venustas. This book revolves around the artistic aspect of the subject, not its military merits. It focuses on those architectural features that are truly unique to Malta - such as the quality and feel of the beautiful honey-coloured local stone over drab (and universal) concrete shapes fabricated from imported cement, wrought iron, and other alien materials. All the photographs were specifically chosen for their artistic and sculptural qualities and great effort was made (given the special requirements and format of the publication) to present them in a chronological order so that they could still reflect the salient developments in the art and science of fortification.

Fortress Malta 360° is a book about fortifications as monumental works of architecture, as structures and buildings.

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE

DISCORSO DEL GOZZO ET SUA FORTIFICATIONE: TWO REPORTS

BY GIOVANNI RINALDINI ANCONITANO

by Mr Godwin Vella

Giovanni Rinaldini of Ancona was the first military engineer of note to have seriously examined the defence problems facing Gozo and to produce plans for the Island’s initial fortification.

(1) He studied the art of fortification under Germanico Sovargnano (2) and was working in Rome before coming over to Malta in March 1599. During his stay, Rinaldini carried out two field surveys of Gozo and authored two reports of superior professional value with accompanying plans and designs.

Unfortunately, the latter have since been lost.

none of the respective publications offers a comprehensive resume of the said reports, and this short write-up will, therefore, attempt to give a summary of all pertinent details.

Primo Discorso (FOLIOS. 253 – 266V) Rinaldini opens his first report by listing the topics to be covered, namely whether Gozo is to be fortified or not, the sites to be fortified, the layout of the proposed fortifications, and the projected expenses.

Fortifying Gozo Curiously enough, Rinaldini does not make any direct statements on the compelling need to fortify Gozo, but makes a number of references and comments that betray his strong positive conviction. These include the vital role of Gozo during the Great Siege of 1565 (fol. 255), effective control of the Gozo and the Malta channels

Rinaldini’s reports are entitled “Discorso del Gozzo et sua fortificazione” and “Della fortificazione del Gozzo – Secondo Discorso” respectively. They are written in a fairly legible script and have a combined length of 30 folios and over 9000 words.

These reports are preserved in the Archives of the Order of Malta at the National Library, Volume 6554 – “Pareri e Discorsi sopra le Fortificationi”.(3) Evidently, many scholars in the field of military history consulted Rinaldini’s reports and published substantial sections in a number of authoritative publications, particularly SamutTagliaferro’s “The Coastal Fortifications of Gozo and Comino”. Notwithstanding,

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respectively (fol. 257), the Island’s importance for livestock rearing (fols.

260v & 262v), and the monitoring of vessel movement between the Maltese Islands and Sicily (fol. 264v).

The Sites to be Fortified The four most appropriate sites for the construction of a new fortified town are Ras it-Tafal (overlooking M!arr harbour), the Gran Castello, G’ajn Damma plateau (overlooking Marsalforn bay), and Il-Pergla plateau (overlooking Ramla bay). (Figure 1) Ras it-Tafal, referred to as il sito del Mugiarro, is well located to prevent the enemy from making use of the abundant fresh water springs flowing in Wied Biljun, to preclude any hostile vessels from seeking shelter or sail through the Gozo Channel, to send and receive messages from Malta, to facilitate the deployment of relieving forces to Gozo,

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE

Plan of Fort Manoel and one of its salient underground countermine galleries situated beneath the covertway (NLM). Bottom right, Outerworks in front of Porta Reale, Valletta.

military establishment, dictating the shape of the Order’s military organization as well as the course of the development and design of military architecture in the Maltese islands throughout the rest of the eighteenth century. During this seminal period, the ensuing imprint of French ideas extended to cover all aspects of the military arts, particularly the architecture, from the planimetric design of a fort down to the decorative elements of Baroque gateways. Indeed, the first quarter of the eighteenth century was to prove most prolific where the construction of fortifications was concerned. While it is true that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were the most formative periods in the fortification of the Maltese islands, where the strategic and military decisions culminating in the foundation of the new fortress of Valletta and the formation of massive outlying enceintes

were to remain largely responsible for determining the defensive strategy throughout the remainder of the Order’s rule, many of these schemes had remained unfinished and incomplete by the end of the 1600s. So it was largely due to the work of the French military engineers in the eighteenth century that most of these earlier monumental works were brought to completion and fitted with all the adjuncts of defence – gateways, outwerworks (countermines and glacis), powder magazines, retrenched bastions and detached forts.

Inevitably, therefore, much of the final shape, form, and character of most of the fortifications of Malta, including earlier fifteenth-century works like Birgu and Mdina, became largely the product of the French school of military architecture. And a large part of the credit must go, indirectly, to the genius of Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban, the man who helped establish France as the leading exponent of military architecture in the latter half of the late seventeenth century. So much so, that many of the new elements that were introduced by the French military engineers, such as the purposely-built gunpowder magazines or polveriste as they were known, and the drawbridge mechanisms fitted to the new Baroque gateways designed and built by Mondion, were described in the Order’s documents as being ‘à la Vauban’. Many of the beautifully decorated gateways, with their trophies-of-arms and escutcheons that nowadays are taken as the familiar

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face of Baroque Malta, first appeared during Mondion’s period in office.

It was not simply new ideas and devices, however, that the French military engineers brought over with them to the Maltese islands. Above all, they helped usher in a new sense of professionalism in the field of military engineering and architecture. The prima donna attitude of many an earlier haughty Italian military engineer, such as Floriani and Laparelli, was replaced by the professionalism of disciplined men who were the product of a controlled system and a formalized school of engineering. They helped the Order create an organized fortifications department, equipped with surveyors, agrimensori and disegnatori. Their first systematical exercise was to draw up a record, a sort of stocktaking exercise, documenting all the existing defences, with accurate plans and elevations, many of which were missing or non-existing. A few decades earlier for example, Mederico Blondel, as resident engineer in charge of the Knights’ fortifications, was greatly surprised to find large casemated interiors within the Valletta ramparts of which he was ignorant, there having been no plan and records of them in the sala delle fortificationi.

The systematical and methodical approach of the French military mind is perhaps best reflected in these many well-prepared and beautifully executed plans of the fortification projects still to

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE be found preserved in the National Library in Valletta, together with their accompanying analytical reports. These scaled, meticulously detailed technical drawings and sectional elevations, drawn to an established convention, contrast markedly with the more crudely-executed designs of the earlier epochs.

The second other important French military mission to visit the island, came in 1761. This was headed by François Charles Count de Bourlamaque and a party of four military engineers by the name of Pontleroy, Desandroüins, Fournier, and De Cuire. Under the direction of Nicholas de Pontleroy, who had seen service in Quebec as engineerin-chief, this group of engineers conducted a thorough evaluation of the existing defences. However, apart from urging the Order to complete the harbour fortifications according to René Jacob de Tigné’s earlier masterplan and written instructions, and endorsing the strategy of opposing the enemy on the beaches with yet more coastal defences, their visit, however, did not translate into any real concrete outcome, other than the commencement of a few entrenchments.

The man who would effectively guide the Order’s fortress building efforts in the latter half of the eighteenth century was the Balì Francois Jacob de Tigné, a knight and the nephew of Brigadier René Jacob de Tigné himself. Although, strictly speaking, Balì de Tigné was a commissioner of fortifications, he seems to have been a competent engineer in his own right and continued to exercise this role for many a decade in the absence of a resident engineer after the departure of Francesco Marandon in 1761. The Order’s records only mention one other engineer working for the knights during the late 1780s, again a Frenchmen , the ‘Ingénieur Fra Henry de Mazis’. Balì de Tigné was responsible, amongst many other things, for directing the various coastal works of entrenchments, the outerworks of Fort Ricasoli, and the renovation of the armouries in Valletta. Fort Tigné, the last fort to be built in 1793, was actually named in his honour, in recognition for his long service to the Order. The fort itself, however, was built by another

Plan of gunpowder magazine 'a la Vauban' at Fort Manoel, with a cutaway diagram showing layout of such magazines, bottom.

Frenchmen Stephen Tousard who was to be the last of the resident military engineers to be employed by the Order before its surrender to Napoleon in 1798.

The tangible products of this French connection can be seen all over the island. They are most evident around the island’s shores – the redoubts, batteries, and entrenchments built in 1715-16 and at Fort Manoel and Fort Chambrai. The coastal batteries in particular were all based on patterns evolved by the French towards the end of the seventeenth century - Fort Lupinat Saint Nazaire (1683), Fort St Louis at Toulon (1692-1697), la Tour de Camaret (1694), Fort du Chapus at Bourcefranc (1690-1692) and Fort d’Ambleteuse at Pas-de-Calais (1680-

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1690) are typical prototypes. Although much smaller in scale, the Maltese batteries were given the same type of semi-circular gun platforms with between 4 to 9 gun positions firing through embrasures in the parapet while their rear, facing landward, were closed off by one or two defensible rooms and a redan. Although many of the batteries which took root around the Islands’ shores materialized in the years 1715-16, the idea for these French style coastal defences had been first mooted by the Commissioners D’Arginy and Fontet and a French secondary engineer by the name of Francois Bachelieu in 1714. The coastal defence strategy found a great exponent in the Prior of France, the Balì de Vendôme and it was mainly through his insistence, and a generous loan of 40,000 scudi which he presented to the Order, that the network of batteries and redoubts was made possible. A number of other knights too, made financial donations.

It is Fort Manoel and Fort Chambrai, however, which are the most striking local examples of the work of French engineers. Originally conceived by Tigné in 1715, the two forts were slightly redesigned when eventually built later in the century by Mondion and Marandon respectively. Their low silhouette and system of aggressive outerworks sets them distinctively apart from the other bastioned fortresses in the Maltese islands.

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE have best sumed up the contemporary ideas that European military architects of the time considered to be the apogee of the art of fortification. In this respect it holds a unique position as the only fortress conceived as a true Baroque fortified town – one designed to embody contemporary theories on the unification of the visual arts with urban and military planning to produce a structure with a heightened sense of drama and power. A plan of the fortified city drawn around 1754 reveals a town intended to be laid out on a grid pattern of avenues and streets enclosed by square blocks of houses with internal gardens.

The focal point of the new city, which was to be approached by a wide avenue, took the form of a spacious piazza containing the main church, the castellania (courthouse) and the governor’s palace, which was also to double as a ‘grande place d’armes’. The two blocks in the plaza were to be fronted by an arched portico in the fashion of contemporary ideas about the visual quality and vista potential of urban spaces conceived as part of the new Baroque order.

Ordonnance du Roi found amongst the manuscript volumes of the Order of St Jon at the NLM.

Fort Manoel was the first to be built.

The date on the main gate reads 1726 but the fort was not truly completed until well into the 1730s. It was designed to command the hitherto exposed northern flank of Valletta and Marsamxett Harbour. Grand Master Manoel de Vilhena financed its construction out of his own pocket and even set up a special fund (Fondazzione Manoel) to enable the ongoing maintenance of the fort.

Although in plan, the square, fourbastioned pattern adopted for its design was a common and standard design solution, Fort Manoel was given graceful proportions and a well laid out interior. Furthermore, owing to the nature of the terrain, the fort was practically carved out from the bedrock, making it virtually bombproof by the standards of the time.

Fort Manoel’s internal arrangement, centred around the piazza (parade ground), a range of arcaded barrack blocks and a church, was a hitherto novel arrangement by local standards.

The fort was also fitted out with two Vauban-style powder magazines and an extensive system of underground countermine tunnels and galleries beneath the glacis. The Comte de Bourlamaque, seeing it for the first time in 1761, called it a ‘modèle de fortification fait avec soin’ and complete in all its parts.

Fort Chambrai, on the other hand, was conceived primarily as a fortified city, but having failed to attract inhabitants, it remained a purely military establishment. Of all the fortifications it is perhaps this fortress which would

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In practice, however, the town inside the new fortifications never took root and Fort Chambrai remained a purely military station, an empty enclosure devoid of any structures except for a large bomb-proof barrack block, a chapel, and a small powder magazine.

The existence of documents such as the statutes and regulations of the French corps of military engineers among the manuscript volumes in the archives of the Order, one example shown here on this page, reveals quite clearly how keenly the Hospitaller military establishment sought to keep itself abreast of all the developments and practices taking place in France.

One of the las t important devices introduced from France was the Gribeauval carriage. When in 1770s the French introduced the Gribeauval traversing carriages in their coastal batteries, the invention did not go unnoticed by the knights. In 1788, we find the Congregation of Fortification and War examining the ‘modelli’ (sample models) and instructions for the

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE construction of the latest Gribeauval carriage forwarded by Balì de Tigné and appreciating the advantages offered by its design, particularly the wider field of fire provided by the rotating mounting and the added protection that it gave the gun crew. Consequently, the commander of artillery was ordered to see to the construction of a prototype coastal gun mounting for an 18-pdr cannon according to the designs presented to the Congregation and to draw up an account of the costs involved. The cost of replacing all the existing gun carriages with the new Gribeauval-type model, however, was found to be exorbitant, and since the Order did not have the money, it was not possible to proceed with the desired conversion. Furthermore, to work properly, the Gribeauval carriage had to be accommodated in specially modified parapets that allowed for the traversing of the platform. This meant that the existing parapets and embrasures had also to be rebuilt. A few plans showing the parapets of Fort Tigné, and other batteries erected at St. Elmo (St. Gregory Bastion) and Fort Ricasoli show that these were designed to house the new gun carriages. Whether or not such works were ever actually equipped in this manner, however, is difficult to determine. The minutes of the meeting of the Congregation of Fortification and War held on 28 August 1789, reveal that it was only possible to replace those carriages rendered unserviceable with the new pattern while an entry for 1795, shows that orders were given for the production of only one Gribeauval

Graphic reconstruction of the Gribeauval-type of carriage and emplacement erected by the Knights in the last decade of their rule.

carriage a year (‘secondo il nuovo modello’).

A very important reason why Fort Chambrai, mentioned earlier, would prove to be the last of the bastioned fortresses can also be found in the fact that by the latter half of the eighteenth century, the supremacy of the bastioned system of fortification was being increasingly challenged by the growing popularity of another style of fortification – the tenaille trace, revived and developed by another Frenchmen, Marc René, Marquis de Montalembert.

The appeal of this new ‘polygonal fortification’ was that it did away with bastions and curtain walls and enabled a greater concentration of guns to make

full use of the increased effective range of which the latest weapons were then capable of. Ironically, Montalembert’s pioneering ideas found little favour in France as most French engineers clung to the traditional models established by Vauban, but his concepts were quickly taken up and developed by the Germans in Prussia and would eventually become the established method of fortressbuilding throughout the rest of Europe in the course of the following century.

That Montalembert’s ideas also found their way to Malta is attested by Fort Tigné, the last significant fortified work built by the knights in Malta in 1793-95.

This small fort, more of a redoubt really, was designed by the Order’s resident French military engineer Stephen Tousard who seems to have borrowed heavily from the lunettes built by Jean Claude Eleonore Lemichaud D’Arçon at Montdauphin and elsewhere. With its circular tower-keep, diamond-shaped plan, and counterscarp musketry galleries and countermines, it was to prove a definite and clear break from the traditional bastioned style of fortification found around Valletta and its harbours. That however, is another story.

Left, Scale model of Fort Tigné, the last major work of fortification constructed by the Knights on Montalembert's 'polygonal' system.

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ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE and to prohibit enemy landings at M!arr bay. Besides, the plateau’s underlying steep Blue Clay cliffs and narrow foreshore rule out the setting up of offensive gun platforms by enemy forces, while the site’s proximity to the sea eases the transportation of building supplies. (Figure 2) The construction of a fortified town at Ras it-Tafal, however, would not stop the enemy from replenishing fresh water supplies or land at Marsalforn Bay, and is too distant to overpower decisively enemy vessels sailing through the Malta Channel. Likewise, effective signalling can be achieved from greater distances, whereas the required relieving forces can land in any other bay.

Of greater concern is the gently rising Ghajnsielem hinterland, which dominates Ras it-Tafal and is too vast to be incorporated within the proposed fortified town. Also, the bedrock is very friable and could be mined without difficulty by the enemy, while the building materials that are to be reclaimed from the excavation of the ditch are of inferior quality. A new fortified town at Ras it-Tafal would also be relatively distant from the main agricultural region of the Island.

Rinaldini, thus, suggests the construction of a coastal tower armed with four pieces of artillery to prevent the enemy from landing at Mgarr bay or sail through the Gozo Channel. Such a tower should endure assaults by small parties of besiegers, and no large enemy force would waste its time and energy to defeat it.

Moreover, the adjacent hill of Ta’ Gelmus dominates the Castello and neighbouring Rabat, and is ideal for the location of a rival besieging battery.

Should the Castello be reinforced to counteract such a bombardment from Ta’ Gelmus the majority of the existing houses are to be knocked down to make room for a capacious gun platform, since the existing defensive walls and underlying cliffs are exceedingly high to be screened off by a new line of fortifications. Consequently, the Island’s population and their livestock (around 16,000 heads) can no longer be accommodated therein during emergencies. This means that Rabat is also to be enclosed by a new defensive wall that can in turn be easily neutralised from Ta’ Gelmus, and should the Order opt to construct a small fort on Ta’ Gelmus, it will be obliged to construct and maintain three new fortifications and not one. Likewise, the resulting expensive and extensive defence network could still be attacked and breached with relative ease along its eastern flank. Rinaldini, thus, concludes that the site of the Castello is to be abandoned in view of the many serious faults highlighted.

Ghajn Damma, referred to as il sito di Marsalforno, is a north-facing promontory 300 canne long and 180 canne wide. The greater extent of its perimeter is demarcated by sheer cut Upper Coralline cliffs and underlying steep Blue Clay slopes, while the mesa

The Gran Castello’s only advantages are the availability of the domestic units and the fact that its central location offers a quick retreat from all parts of the Island. Its setting, however, is seriously deficient. The underlying friable cliff face can be mined with relative ease in view of the Castello’s round shape and lack of flanking outworks. The existing time-consumed defensive walls are not stiffened by terrapleins and are not able to resist enemy bombardment for more than two days, particularly from the Rabat side.

(Figure 3)

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consists of a well compacted and solid rock formation. G’ajn Damma is therefore safe from mining and surprise attacks from the sea-facing sides, dominates Marsalforn Bay, commands the prime agricultural region of Marsalforn valley (ideal also for the grouping of livestock during emergencies), controls the entrance of Ramla Bay, is flanked by Il-Pergla valley (referred to as vallata delli giardini), and can be relieved from the sea in the eventuality of a siege. (Figure 4) Below, Graphic reconstruction of theGran Castello prior to Rinaldini's intervention (Illustration by Stephen C. Spiteri).

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE perpendicular cliffs running along the north, west and east facing flanks are to be crowned by a shallow 800-canne long parapet wall, whilst the town’s gate is to be positioned along the western half of the south facing land front, therefore, on the same side of the approaching road from the Marsalforn side.

The northern half of the Ghajn Damma promontory offers ample space for the construction of a new fortified town to accommodate the entire population of the island and to shelter a substantial portion of the livestock during emergencies. Its south-facing flank needs to be defended by a threebastioned land front, while the remaining perimeter is to be enclosed by a low and indented parapet wall. In addition, a tower is to be erected on the most elevated part of the resultant enclosure. This can serve as a platform for the church’s belfry and establish a direct visual link with the proposed tower at Ras it-Tafal. Should the said communication link fail, another simple tower is to be constructed somewhere in between.

Ghajn Damma is also ideally positioned to monitor vessel movements between the Maltese Islands and Sicily, and is reached from Marsalforn valley by a manageable road. Notwithstanding the highlighted good qualities, the bedrock is extremely hard and will prove to be problematic for the construction of the houses and for the excavation of the water cisterns and of the ditch.

Il-Pergla, referred to as il sito della Ramla, has the same footprint, elevation and qualities of Ghajn Damma, except that it dominates Ramla and not Marsalforn bay. The bedrock, however, is more workable, a consideration of extreme relevance for the initial construction costs and eventual breach repairs during enemy assaults. As to the less commanding position in relation to

Marsalforn bay, it is to be borne in mind that neither of the respective plateaus enjoys complete control of both bays (i.e. Marsalforn and Ramla). In this respect, Rinaldini ends his Primo Discorso by identifying Il-Pergla as the most appropriate site for the construction of Gozo’s new fortified town.

Secondo Discorso (Folios. 267 – 282) Having exhausted the debate on whether Gozo is to be fortified or not and the sites to be fortified, Rinaldini opens his second report by stating that he will be focusing on the layout of the proposed fortifications and the projected expenses.

Proposed Layout Rinaldini reconfirms his earlier conclusion about Ras it-Tafal by repeating that a tower would be fitting, and makes reference to an accompanying plan. On the contrary, following a reassessment of Ghajn Damma it was established that the bedrock is apt for quarrying, while its consistency is very similar to that of IlPergla. Consequently, the site of G’ajn Damma is preferred in view of its narrower land front.

Rinaldini, then, refers to the accompanying plans, and clarifies the measurements adopted (whereby a canna is equal to 10 palmi or 1½ passi, and a passo is equal to 5 pied), and explains its colour coding. The

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Had the land front been more extensive, one could have spaced out more the respective bastions, even if the proposed three-bastioned layout is very effective and can withstand enemy bombardment relatively well. Any relieving forces are to reach G’ajn Damma by sea, climb the north-facing steep Blue Clay slopes and enter the town through a rock-hewn tunnel at the foot of the Upper Coralline cliff face, which is to remain walled up under normal circumstances.

Although dry, the ditch is safe from mining in view of the extreme hardness of the rock, while its counterscarp is to have a two-passi wide covered-way to facilitate movement around and breach repairs. As to the construction techniques, Rinaldini claims that the local methods are very prone to breaching because of the poor bonding between the outer skin and the backfilling and due to the excessive use of un-squared boulders in the same backfilling.

The Gran Castello is to be abandoned, as any refortification attempts will prove to be futile. It is dominated by the hill of Ta’ Gelmus and by the neighbourhood of the Franciscan’s Convent, 180 and 160 canne distant respectively, and well within the shooting range of the arquebus and the musket. Nonetheless, should the Order persist in retaining the Castello, it can be fortified in four slightly different manners as highlighted in the attached designs.

The main southwest-facing land front is to feature two bastions and a central ravelin, and the Castello’s door is to be concealed from the Ta’ Gelmus viewpoint. Besides, two strong shoulders are to be erected in the west and east extremities to shield the same land front and the greater part of the habitations from Ta’ Gelmus and from the neighbourhood of the Franciscan Friary respectively.

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE repaired to accommodate the inhabitants of Rabat. All stone barricades lying within a radius of 200 canne are to be removed and Rabat is to be raised to the ground and levelled.

Besides, the recently repaired Rabat muraglia is to be pulled down. At this point Rinaldini replicates once more that Gozo’s new fortified town is to be sited at Ghajn Damma.

Above, Garzes Tower, as seen from the landward side to the rear, after Salvatore Busuttil. The tower was demolished in the nineteenth century.

The existing enceinte along the remaining circumference (from the north-west to the south-east) is to be rendered unassailable by shaving off the underlying cliff face and by lowering the soil level at its foot, whereas the debris generated is to be partly employed for the thickening of the same enceinte.

To be noted that the resultant fortress will be unproportionally high, thus easily hit and damaged by the enemy.

Nonetheless, if the fortifications are made lower the domestic units will become exposed completely and the enemy can opt to defeat the Castello by battering the said houses and force the defenders into surrender.

Besides, as the Order is not in a position to stop the enemy from landing on Gozo and plant a gun platform on Ta’ Gelmus, a small fort that can take eight or ten pieces of artillery and 300 soldiers is to be erected on the said hill. Such a fort, however, will still not render the Castello impregnable since its eastfacing flank will remain vulnerable.

With regards the claim that the Castello’s surrounding terrain is not stable enough to withstand the weight of the proposed fortifications, it is to be stressed that the said terrain is of very good quality, particularly when it comes to breach repairs and related emergency mitigation measures.

Provided that the Order is determined to retain the Castello, the existing walls are to be stiffened by terrapliens, whereas the abandoned houses are to be

Projected Expenses The capital investment required for Ghajn Damma is very difficult to quantify in view of the hardness of the rock. However, it should not be unbearably expensive as the span of the proposed bastioned front is only 200 canne long and the stones reclaimed are to be employed for the construction of the same fortifications. The parapet wall along the remaining circumference can be erected with 1600 scudi (2 scudi per canna), and another 2000 scudi are required as sundry expenses. Thus, the total expenditure for G’ajn Damma should not exceed 80,000 scudi.

An estimate of the costs to be incurred in connection with the refortification of the Castello is equally intricate. The building stones are to be sourced from three different localities (Figure 3), namely San Giuliano (Wied Sara neighbourhood) (4), Santa Agnese (Gran Fontana neighbourhood) (5) and the Nunziata (Lunzjata valley).

Conversely, the expense to be incurred in connection with the excavation of the ditch can be calculated with relative ease in view of the workability of the terrain. This is estimated to reach a minimum of 12,800 scudi (8 tari x 19,200 canne cube), and possibly escalate to 15,000 scudi when taking into account also the shaving off of cliff face along the northern enceinte.

The erection of the proposed bastioned land front seems to be achievable with 25,000 scudi. Besides, 10,000 scudi are required for the scaffolding, and another 10,000 scudi for the provision of various supplies and related sundry expenses. This means that the Castello can be refortified with 60,000 scudi. As to the fort on Ta’ Gelmus the projected expense depends on the type of artillery to be deployed. Rinaldini ends his

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second report by stating that the said works could be completed within two years.

In a nutshell, Rinaldini advocated the Order to defend the Island of Gozo by constructing a coastal tower at Ras itTafal and a new fortified town at G’ajn Damma. These were to be linked together visually via one or two towers.

Likewise, the Gran Castello and underlying Rabat were to be abandoned. The Order, however, decided to retain and re-fortify the Castello (1599 – 1620’s), and to construct Garzes tower (1607) at Il-Blata l-Bajda (Figure 2), and the first Marsalforn tower (1616) at G’ajn Damma. (6)

Godwin Vella, B.A. (Hons.)

(Archaeology), MBA is manager, Gozo Museums and Sites, within Heritage Malta.

Notes and References 1.Samut-Tagliaferro A., 1993, The oastal Fortifications of Gozo and Comino, (Midsea Publications – Malta), 47.

2. Spiteri Stephen C., 'The Role of the Military Engineer in the Organization of the Hospitalier Military Order of St John', Paper presented during the International Conference on Fortifications and Sea Border. The development of bulwarked fortifications from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic between the 15th and 18th century (Centre d’Informacio Jove de l’Ajuntament d’Eivissa), http://cijae.eivissa.org.

3. The last section of AOM 6554 (Folios 251 – 327) is entitled “Discorsi sopra le Fortificatione del Gozzo”.

4.

Agius De Soldanis G.P.F., 1999, Gozo Ancient and Modern, Religious and Profane, Media Centre Publications – Malta, 82.

5. Ibid., 79.

6. Samut-Tagliaferro, 48.

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE

THE ART OF FORTRESS BUILDING IN HOSPITALLER MALTA by Dr Stephen C Spiteri By dr. Stephen C. Spiteri The religious and military Order of knights of St. John sought to affirm its destiny in stone. Its long military history can be said to have been moulded by ramparts of stone.

Indeed, the one constant feature of the Hospitaller war machine throughout its long six hundred-year history was its heavy reliance on formidable stongholds and forts.

In all the theatres of war in which the Order established its convent - the Latin East, Rhodes, and Malta - fortifications were the Order’s prime instrument of war. Without their fortified bases, the knights would not have been able to take the war to their enemies, nor defend themselves from the heavy retaliatory blows that were sure to follow. The castles and fortresses of Syria and the Latin East such as Crac de Chevaliers,Marqab and Belvoir, together with the fortresses of Rhodes and the Dodecanese islands and the bastioned enceintes and towers of Malta all stand monument to the importance that the Hospitaller knights assigned to the design and construction of their fortifications.

Nowhere was this commitment to build fortresses, however, so manifestly evident as during the Maltese period of the Order’s long military history.In the two-and-a-half centuries that the knights occupied the Maltese islands, they transformed them from a barren outpost on the fringes of the European mainland, what was then a dependency of the Spanish crown, into a front line bulwark for all Christendom and one of the heaviest defended islands anywhere in the world – literally an islandfortress in the centre of the Mediterranean.

This prodigious fortress-building effort was made possible by the Order’s singlemindedness of purpose and the huge financial resources that the knights were able to muster and funnel into their

ambitious building programmes. Equally important, was the Order’s highly efficient form of government, run on a relatively stable constitution that had been developed and perfected very early in its formation and one that allowed it a continuity and consistency in its actions.By the time of the arrival of the Order in Malta in 1530, the Hospitallers had acquired a long fortressbuilding tradition. Their administrative and organizational mechanism, geared towards perpetual warfare, had developed, over the centuries, into a highly efficient structure.

The Art of Fortress Building in Hospitaller Malta was an exhibition that drew attention to this unique building process. Organized by the National Library and Dr Stephen C Spiteri with the assistance of the Fortress Explorer Society and the Superintendence of Cultural Heritage under the auspices of the International Institute of Baroque Studies, UOM, it focused on the issues that military engineers had to contend with in the implementation of fortress schemes, following the construction of a complex work of fortification throughout its many stages andalso examining the organization of the workforce, the workings of the fortification atelier, and the roles played by military engineers, commissioners, surveyors, draughtsmen, master-masons and the various skilled craftsmen and labourers.

A crucial aspect of this exhibition was to show how the knights themselves and their contemporaries recordedthis extensive building activity. The end product is a synthesis of contemporary engineers’ and commissioners’ reports, original architectural plans and maps, building contracts and ‘appalti’, minutes of the meetings of the Order’s council and the Congregation of War and Fortification, testimonials, notarial deeds, and numerous

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‘supplichi’ by master-masons, skilled craftsmen, and other individuals involved in the building industry. The story is also told by means of specially designed panels, detailed scale models of fortifications, building tools and replica instruments. (An online catalogue can be downloaded from www.fortress-explorer.org/exh_catal.html) The art of fortification in the Maltese islands throughout the Order’s rule was a complex and multifaceted activity that grew to impinge upon many aspects of the knights’ organizational, military, and technical capabilities. The numerous and on going schemes of fortification impressed themselves not only upon the Order itself but also, inevitably, upon the Maltese society in general. The extent to which the whole fortification enterprise affected the Maltese milieu was considerable. Aside from the financial benefits derived from the large sums of money drawn from abroad, which filtered down into the economy in general, the fortification works provided wide employment, generating in the process, a prosperous quarrying and building industry. On the other hand, the imposition of taxation and other financial burdens did lead to a growing sense of resentment among the inhabitants which, coupled with other long-standing grievances, eventually resulted in the downfall of the Order. But there is no denying the fact that the fortifications did provide the inhabitants with an increasing sense of security, especially from 1566 onwards. At no time in their past history had the Maltese inhabitants been so well protected against invasion and predatory piratical raids as they were throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The population explosion which the Maltese islands witnessed throughout the two hundred years or so of the Order’s rule must have been, to some extent, ascribable to the effects of the fortress building activity.

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE Within the military and technical sphere, the building of fortifications throughout the period under review was characterized by an effort aimed at establishing an allencompassing defensive strategy designed to cover the whole of the island (including Gozo). This, in turn dictated an everbroadening span of projects and a parallel increase in organizational and logistical commitments. The whole process reached its climax by the middle of the eighteenth century with the erection of works such as Fort Manoel, Fort Chambrai and the coastal defences of St Julians, Birzebbuga and Armier. The effort becomes all the more impressive when one realizes that it was accompanied by a similarly huge investment designed to bring to completion many of the monumental, yet largely unfinished, seventeenth-century Baroque schemes around the harbour area – the enceintes of Floriana, Firenzuola and Cottonera.

In terms of military architecture, however, the eighteenth century cannot be viewed in isolation from the previous epochs, particularly the 1600s, when the basic fundamental strategy and many of the processes that were to condition the final configuration of the fortifications were laid down by the Order. Indeed, a considerable part of the building effort invested during the 1700s was intended to bring to completion and rationalize the seventeenth century monumental schemes. This was no mean task in itself especially since most of these vast enceintes had still to be fitted with outerworks and many of the other necessary elements of defence such as retrenchments, magazines, and barracks.

If one can identify any characteristic difference between seventeenth and eighteenth century defensive works, this must surely be the fact that the monumental Baroque schemes of vast and continuous bastioned enceintes projected during the

1600s, such as the Floriana, Sta Margherita and Cottonera lines, had begun to give way to a preference for a system of smaller detached works as the eighteenth century wore on. With the exception of the overtly ambitious schemes of the coastal lines of entrenchments, which were designed to envelope the shores within miles-long stretches of ramparts, a scheme which, however, was quickly abandoned, the defences erected during the 1700s comprised mainly of small batteries, redoubts, and detached forts. Although it can be argued that this development was somewhat dictated by the state of the Order’s dwindling financial resources, it also reflects the increasing trend in military circles towards a new style of military architecture – a shift from the traditional bastioned enceintes to the new polygonal systems that was to become the fashion throughout later centuries. This evolution is best illustrated at Fort Tigné, the last significant work of fortification erected by the knights and one which was influenced by the writings of the Frenchmen, Marc Rene, Marquis de Montalembert. Ironically, Montalembert’s pioneering ideas found little favour in France since most French engineers clung to the traditional concepts established by Vauban.

And it is largely to Vauban’s influence that the Order’s defensive works in the Maltese islands during the eighteenth century owe much of their shape and appearance. Indeed, the second important characteristic feature of the Order’s eighteenth century fortifications is that they are all a product of French military architecture, as opposed to the previous two centuries where the fortifications were invariably of Italian design. This was no coincidence, for by the late 1600s the Order found itself shifting from the imperial into the French sphere of influence, lured by France’s growing

The 18th century saw the introduction of explosives (fornelli) in quarrying of ditches and clearance of ground. military might and prestige in the world.

And in military architecture, France was then undisputedly the leading exponent.

The real connection began with Grand Master Perellos’ request to King Louis XIV for military assistance following the emergency of 1714, when the Island was once again threatened with attack by the Turks. The generous French response was as much a case of political alliance as it was a calculated act of propaganda. For along with French guns, cannon, and munitions came also a corps of French military advisors. Brigadier René Jacques de Tigné,

Excavation of fortress ditch in the Maltese rocky terrain.

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ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE stone in the manner of permanent fortifications rather than in earth. In such cases, however, a dry-stone walling technique, known as ‘à pietra à secco’, was employed without the use of mortar although at times wet soil was used to provide a degree of binding strength to such works. The use of earth as a binding mortar, even in normal ramparts, was a practice which remained in widespread use throughout the 1700s. Many engineers decried this habit as earth did not produce very strongly bonded walls, especially in repair works. Others believed it was a good cost-effective substitute that could be resorted to in order to cut down on expenses, for the production of lime consumed vast amounts of wood fuel.

Although, wherever possible dry brushwood, collected from around the countryside, was used to fire the kilns, the pressure of ongoing works meant that there was also a heavy reliance on imported timber, inevitably raising the cost of production of this important material and at times causing difficulties in meeting the required production quotas.

The scarcity of timber can also be gauged from the fact that even as late as 1782 many fortress gateways were still lacking their wooden doors and drawbridges, some of which had to be walled up. The list of building materials present on site during the building of Fort Chambrai, for example, shows how every single piece of timber was inventoried and accounted for. Col. Morshead, Commanding RE in Malta in 1832, records how the woodwork of most coastal towers and redoubts around the island had been ‘stolen and carried’ away by the public.

The eighteenth century also witnessed the need for greater control over all building materials and supplies. New, and firmer, regulations were laid down by the Chapter General of 1776 in order to ensure greater accountability over the resources, particularly the supplies of wood, metal, lime and pozzolana held in various magazines, with consignments of new stocks having to take place in the presence of auditors and detailed records kept of all provisions.

The eighteenth century saw ever-increasing burdens imposed by an ever-growing system of fortifications. By the latter half of the 1700s, it was no longer possible to give attention to all the elements in the defences and inevitably some areas went neglected for many a decade. Even so, the Order exerted great effort to maintain the fortifications in a reasonable state of repair and even when impoverished by the confiscation of its European revenues towards the end of the 1700s, it always sought to allocate some funds towards the upkeep of the fortifications. By 1795, however, many repair works had to be suspended and subsequently abandoned for a lack of funds.

Like today, most of the causes of decay resulted from erosion, torrential rains and vegetation, and even the inhabitants were not lacking in contributing to the spoliation of parapets and walkways. The knights were also not impartial to allowing considerable sections of the fortifications to serve as private orchards and gardens, and even as a form of social housing for the poorer sections of the Maltese society – an unmilitary practice that did little to contribute towards the overall upkeep and good state of repair.

The picture that emerges of the fortifications during the eighteenth century is that of a complex network of defences where nearly all of the defensive components had been laid out according to the defensive master plan established earlier at the beginning of the century by Tigné.

Some areas such as the Corradino heights and Ta’Xbiex, however, still lacked any fortifications and even Dragut Point had only just been fortified with a small new work that was completed in 1795. Many, though not all, of the forts and fortresses had been fitted with all basic adjuncts of defence – outerworks and countermines, glacis, powder magazines, drawbridges, sally-ports etc. Yet the whole system, although generally depicted quite neatly on contemporary maps and plans of the harbour was still not quite so complete in all its details. Bourlamaque’s remark, in 1761, that Fort Manoel was a ‘model of fortification’ could not be said of all the other fortifications, including those on the nearby island of Gozo, and of the system of coastal defences.

This state of affairs emerges very clearly from the early reports of the British military in the nineteenth century. The British documents show that even though the fortifications were hardly tested in action during the French blockade and were, therefore, inherited in a relatively undamaged state, they appear in a prevailing state of unreadiness, and sometimes disrepair. Notably lacking were infantry banquettes and firing platforms while many ditches, scarps, countermines, and glacis were on the whole uncompleted. Indeed, they echo in a way many earlier reports prepared by the Order’s engineers and help bear out the fact that the knights lacked the resources during their last years on the Island to enable them to maintain and finish all the defensive works.

Yet this was not the reason why the whole network of defence works succumbed to Napoleon’s troops when finally put to the test in 1798. Ironically, neither the wellthought out and engineered design solutions adopted by the Order’s engineers nor the carefully chosen building materials and timeproven methods employed by the local builders played any part at all in the drama of the Order’s capitulation. It was the Order of St John itself, and not the walls with which it had sought for centuries to surround itself, that had collapsed.

Graphic reconstruction and cutaway of the conical polverista at Fort Chambrai (built

by Francesco Marandon), with its sfiatatori (aeriation vents) designed to keep the powder dry.

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ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE

INSULAR SENTINEL: ST. MARY TOWER COMINO by Dr Stephen C Spiteri

There was a time, particularly in the late middle ages, when a journey across the Fliegu - the channel separating Malta from Gozo - was not so pleasant an experience. It was a trip to be avoided if possible, and one undertaken at great peril. Unlike those making the crossing today, those bygone travellers would have nervously scoured the seas for any sign of suspicious vessels, ready to turn back at the double at the least sign of danger. Their real trouble would have started midway across the channel as they sailed by the island of Comino. For rather than the idyllic and tranquil location that it presents today, Kemmuna was then a treacherous haven for pirates and corsairs, a ‘nidu et latibulu di li ... sarrayni’, hiding inside its cliff-side caves, waiting to pounce upon hapless and unarmed boats plying between the islands. Many, indeed, were those unfortunate enough to fall prey to these marauding corsairs, dragged away to a miserable life of slavery.

The Maltese and Gozitan authorities were understandably concerned with the situation. As early as 1418, we find the Universita of Malta determined to build a tower on Comino. In the following year the inhabitants petitioned King Alphonse V of Aragon for his royal approval. In their petition they stressed the danger of the ‘continui invasioni deceptioni et dapmi ki li dicti fusti de moru fannu continue a la dicta insola a loro habitaturi’ and that it was vital, therefore, to ‘hedificari una turri a la insola di cominu’. The king, through his viceroys, approved the request but rather than forking out the money, decreed that the Universita would have to impose a local tax to defray the building costs. The Maltese dutifully accepted, imposed a tax on imported wine, and collected the necessary funds but the money found its way into Alfonso’s warstarved coffers and the tower was never

built.

The need for the tower, however, was sorely felt through the course of the fifteenth century, and although the issue was raised again in 1488, following another devastating Turkish razzia, the desired defensive work failed to materialize.

The knights of St. John too, were quick to appreciate the threat posed by the little island to the safety of the new island home.

In 1533, ten Barbary galleys, after having raided Malta and sacked the hamlet of Gudja, carrying away four peasants and their livestock, proceeded to Comino where they stayed for three days. Grand Master L-Isle Adam, wishing to prevent a recurrence of the situation, quickly sent his Florentine military engineer Piccin, then just returned from Tripoli, to visit Comino and draw up plans for the building of an adequate tower. In the event, however, with so many urgent defence requirements to be attended to, the Piccin’s design was forgotten and the knights refrained from investing in any form of fortification on the little island.

As a matter of fact, it was only after the Order was securely settled in its new fortress city of Valletta, the knights began to concern themselves with the defence of the remote parts of their little domain. The first Grand Master to consider the problem of the Fliegu was Nicholas Garzes, who left in his will money for the building of a strong artillery tower at Mgarr harbour, overlooking the channel. It was his successor, Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, however, who finally erected the desired structure. On 11 October, 1618, Wignacourt informed his Venerable Council of his intention to erect a tower at his own

Graphic reconstruction showing the roofed faussebraye designed to serve as a musketry gallery as shown in contemporary sketch, top right.

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expense on the island of Comino. This was to be the sixth of a total of seven coastal towers built during Wignacourt’s reign – the others, were sited at St Paul Bay (1609), St Lucian (1610), St Thomas (1614), Marsalforn (1616 – paid for by the Order) and Sta Maria Delle Grazie (1620). At 17,628. 5.10 scudi, the Comino Tower was to prove the costliest of them all. Work on it began in 1618.

Traditionally, the structure is said to have been designed by Vittorio Cassar: For some reason, Gian Frangisk Abela, writing in 1647, attributes the design to him. The only problem with Abela’s assertion is the fact that Cassar died in 1609!. Aside from this jarring discrepancy, there is then the fact that the only tower that Cassar seems to have been indirectly involved with, Torre Garzes in Mgarr, initially designed by Giovanni Rinaldini in 1599, was totally different in shape and form from the Comino tower. Indeed, what really makes all the Wignacourt towers unique (except for

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE the Marsalforn one built in 1616) are their corner-turrets, rudimentary and embryonic form of bastions, as Dr. Quentin Hughes called them. These projecting corner turrets, like bastions, were designed to provide a degree of flanking fire. Rather than being simple towers, therefore, Wignacourt’s coastal structures were veritable gunpowder forts – or fortini – as they were frequently called. The towers’ solid manner of construction – the thick masonry walls (about 6 m at the base) and barrel-vaulted interiors 'à prova di bomba' – also shows that these structures were designed serve more than lookout posts - they were designed to absorb punishment and mount heavy pieces of artillery, guns which were required to engage enemy ships over long distances.

Although, as a rule the Wignacourt towers followed a common design concept, St Mary Tower (as the Comino Tower came to be called) has many unique and interesting features that set it distinctly apart from its sister structures. To begin with, there is its height of 65 feet (19.6m), some 25 ft higher than the other towers, an extension deemed necessary to provide a commanding view over the island and its environs. This extra height is frequently attributed to the masonry plinth, on which the tower is said to be raised. However, this is only an illusion, for the so-called ‘plinth’ is actually an external buttress designed to reinforce the base of the barrel-vaulted structure in order to counter the lateral thrusts of the two superimposed barrel vaults. What makes the linth interesting, however, is that rather than being finished to form a scarped lower half of the tower, it was levelled out and made to provide a wide passage around the floor level of the upper vault; this passage (2.5m wide) was then enclosed by a wall and roofed over to provide a defensive feature in the form an all-round musketry gallery pierced with loopholes for close-indefence, what in some documents is referred to as a falsabraga. This enclosure also contained a gateway served by a bascule type of drawbridge a’ fleccie, and was approached up a masonry flight of steps.

Although no longer visible today, this gallery is clearly illustrated in a sketch found in a Hospitaller document of the period (see illustration).

during the emergencies of 1635 and 1645, or perhaps even later when it was being used as a prison.

Surrounding the tower, at ground level was a crudely-formed glacis, built from the rockchippings and other debris generated in the course of the quarrying and shaping of the stone used in the construction of the tower.

A solitary sally-port, opening into the face of the plinth on the west side of the tower provided access to the ‘ditch’ enveloped by the glacis. This opening was fitted with its own portcullis, which dropped from a slit in the ceiling of the vaulted passageway.

Apparently, the original design made provisions for a second postern, situated on the opposite side of the tower, but the second vaulted passageway was blocked up with masonry and sealed off early in the building stage.

Details of tower, showing reconstructed mizieb, and putlog holes for wooden beams which once supported the roof of the musketry gallery on the faussebraye.

Internally, as already stated, the tower’s structure consisted of two barrel-vaults, one built above the other, with the uppermost having a greater height. At some later stage, the upper vault was subdivided into two floors, each divided into four square rooms; an adhoc arrangement, possibly intended to enable the tower to accommodate the 25 to 30 soldiers which were stationed there

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To the defend itself, and command the surrounding seas, Comino Tower had its own battery of guns. By 1761, these numbered six in all, two 12-pdr iron cannon, and four bronze pieces, a 10-pdr, a 4-pdr and two 3-pdrs. Two 26-pdrs proposed in

by D’Arginy and Bachalieu in 1715 apparently were never installed. The guns were mounted on the roof of the tower, and

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE as such were only useful in long-distance counter bombardment role, against ships sailing through the channel. Given the height, they would have been of little use in the defence of the tower itself.

St Mary Tower saw little military action. It served its time mainly as a deterrent and signalling post, conveying signals from Gozo to Malta, its guns used more to fire salutes whenever the Grand Master’s galleon sailed past the island. The little island was by–passed by the French during their invasion of the Maltese islands in 1798 and during the subsequent blockade of the French by the Anglo-Maltese forces (17981800) it served out its days as a place of internment for spies and suspected Francophiles. Militarily, the tower was abandoned in 1829 and devolved to the local civil authorities. It saw service once again

during both World War I and World War II. The Armed Forces of Malta took it over in 1982 as a lookout post against contraband and the illegal hunting of migratory birds at sea, until in 2002 it was handed over to Din l-Art Helwa, Malta’s national trust, for restoration and cultural use.

The restoration works, which were undertaken between 2002 and 2004, were mainly designed to consolidate and rehabilitate the building. Structurally, the tower has retained its integrity reasonably well throughout close to 400 hundred years.

Sent to inspect the Comino tower in 1681, the knight Fra Ugo de Floregni Vauvilliers could only find a few worn out steps on the detached stairway ramp and some consumed masonry blocks on the side walls.

Since then, the only elements to disappear

have been the roofed musketry gallery and the terrace parapet with its gallery machicolation (gallerija tal-mishun) and musketry loopholes, and even these, rather than having fallen off of their own accord, seem to have been systematically dismantled over the years for their material – timber beams, xorok slabs and smoothfaced blocks – which were carried away to be re-utilized elsewhere.

Thanks to Din l-Art Helwa’s efforts, the public can now visit the tower to admire its architecture and enjoy the breathtaking 360 views of Comino and its surrounding seas from the roof. As from last April Din L-Art Helwa volunteers have been opening the tower on weekends and this year a special open week was held from 18th to 24th June.

CHAPTERS Fortress Building before 1530 The Making of a Bulwark of Christendom Completion of a Scheme The Administration of Fortress Building The Principles of defences Proposals, Plans and Foundations The Structure and Form of Ramparts Gateways and Sally-ports Auxiliary Buildings Outerworks, Countermines, and Glacis Towers, Coastal Works, & Field Defences Building Materials Building Equipment and Tools Repair and Maintenance Arming the Fortress Postscriptum - The Early 1800s

BOOK DETAILS COLOUR PUBLICATION

600 PAGES

Fully documented text hundreds of original drawings, plans, maps and photographs, book size : 170 x 240 mm

20 / ISSUE 5/ 2008

paper quality : 135 grm matt artpaper paperback & hardbound ISBN: 99932-648-2-8 (H/B) ISBN: 99932-648-3-5 (H/B)

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE Diagram showing the different typologies of parapet construction in Hospitaller fortifications. Far left, reconstruction of the radio latino used for measuring distances and surveying (courtesy of Mr. George Grima).

years of service represent the most intense period of fortress-building activity in the Island’s history wherein some of the best and most beautiful examples of forts and fortifications were erected and where most of the existing fortifications were either remodelled or finished with all the modern adjuncts of defence that eighteenth century French military architecture could offer.

During this seminal period, the ensuing imprint of French ideas extended to cover all aspects of military architecture, from the planimetric design of a fort down to the decorative elements of baroque gateways.

Not surprisingly, many of these new elements, such as the purposely-built polveriste and drawbridge mechanisms introduced by Mondion were described in the Order’s documents as being à la Vauban.

who headed the mission, was then one of the most experienced engineers in France with 26 years of service. Assisting him was Charles François de Mondion, and a troop of lesser engineers. Between them, these two military experts would effectively reshape the Order’s military establishment, dictating the course of the development and design of military architecture in the Maltese islands throughout the rest of the century. Mondion would eventually go on to serve the Order as resident engineer until his death in December 1733. His eighteen

It was not simply new devices, however, that the French military engineers brought over with them to the Malta. They also helped usher in a new sense of professionalism in the field of military architecture. The prima donna attitude of many an earlier haughty Italian military engineers, such as Floriani and Laparelli, was replaced by disciplined men who were the product of a controlled system and a formalized school of engineering. The systematical and methodical approach of the French military mind is perhaps best reflected in the many well-prepared and beautifully executed plans of the fortifications projects still to be found preserved in the National Library in Valletta

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together with their accompanying analytical reports. These scaled, meticulously detailed technical drawings and sectional elevations, drawn to an established convention, contrast markedly with the relatively crudely-executed designs of the earlier Italian engineers.

The Order’s documents also reveal a fortress-building activity that followed very closely the contemporary technical practices, in consonant with the conventions of the profession at the time – from the techniques of surveying to the geometric configuration of plans; from the design of countermine tunnels and gunpowder magazines to the working mechanisms of drawbridges; from the gradient of ramparts walls to the ornamentation of Baroque gateways.

Indeed, the close resemblance of some of the adopted solutions to designs featured in various illustrated treatises of the period, such as those of Bernard Forrest de Belidor’s treatise La Science des Ingénieurs dans la conduits des travaux de fortification et d’architecture civile, stand witness to how instrumental printed material had become in exporting ideas and standardizing patterns. The attempts to introduce the Gribeavaul carriage in the late 1780s, for example, also stands witness to the desire to remain in line with all the latest technological developments.

The knights and their military engineers, however, did not simply keep abreast of developments but were at times even able to lead the field. The development of the fougasse-pierrier, the bonded-merlon

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE reinforced against displacement (at Fort Chambrai), and most importantly, the construction of Fort Tigné, one of the first truly polygonal forts, were important contributions to the art of fortification – they were to exert a profound influence on the British military throughout the course of the nineteenth century.

The stimulus of foreign ideas was balanced by the local building practices, dependent as these were on the nature of building materials and long-established traditions, and by the idiosyncrasies of native expertise. Above all, the Order’s builders were constrained to operate within a longestablished administrative and organizational framework that had changed little from the time of the Order’s early years in Rhodes. This structure was primarily designed to retain direct control over the whole process securely in the hands of the knights – from the selection of the engineer down to the distribution of materials and supplies, at all levels of the building process. The only notable development throughout the 1700s was that the whole apparatus became somewhat larger and more bureaucratized, a trend common to most of the other institutions of the Order throughout this period.

The official to emerge most in charge of the fortification building process during the eighteenth century was the resident engineer. Mondion, Marandon, the Balì de Tigné and Tousard acquired a freedom of operation, particularly in designing and conceiving new projects, that would have been the envy of their seventeenth-century counterparts. Hitherto, such a privilege had generally rested solely with the visiting experts invited over to advise on specific projects. Reliance on direct foreign expertise in the earlier Hospitaller tradition is largely conspicuous for its absence throughout the 1700s. To a large degree this is explained by the fact that Tigné’s scheme was adopted by the Order as the definitive master plan for the defence of the fortifications in 1715 in an attempt to prevent a recurrence of the needless expenditure and changes of plan that had resulted from an over-abundance of conflicting advice from numerous foreign experts during the late 1600s. Although, in reality, Mondion, Marandon, and the Bali de Tigné were simply working within the plan originated and masterminded by Tigné, they were still able to achieve more than just the supervision of the day-to-day works. Marandon, for example, invented and introduced the fougasse, and Mondion redesigned Fort Manoel and built various gateways among other projects. The sole exception to this pattern was the visit of the French military mission, headed by Bourlamaque, which was called in during the emergency of 1761. Even so, this brief

interlude did not lead to the implementation of any substantial new works.

The eighteenth century building effort was driven by a locally raised workforce. The labour shortages of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries had given way to a surplus of manpower by the 1700s and at least one documented instance has been encountered where fortification schemes were purposely used as an opportunity to provide work for hard pressed inhabitants.

The smaller scale of the eighteenth century building projects, when compared to the massive seventeenth century schemes meant that although the actual size of a work force at any one site was considerably much smaller, there were usually many more building projects going on at the same time.

In one of his reports, for example, Tigné records that during the final phases of the works on the Floriana lines there were only two masons working on the left branch of the hornwork and on the construction of some traverses in the ditch. Again, the building of Fort Chambrai, in the 1750s never saw more than 200 persons labouring on site. This contrasts sharply with the 4,000 or so men toiling on mount Sciberras in 1566. Yet in the years 1715-1720 there were over fifty separate building projects materializing all across the archipelago.

There is then the fact that there was never the same sense of urgency during the 1700s as there had been during the construction of Valletta. Fortifications built in times of peace progressed much more slowly than those put up in times of war.

Counterforts and casemates used to reinforce rampart construction, as employed along the fausse-braye of the Floriana Lines.

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The late eighteenth century also saw the Order attempt to introduce and maintain squadrons of sappers for use in times of siege, in imitation of the practice which was being introduced in most European armies of the time. These were generally based on a system of volunteers, recruited from the various guilds and comprised a company 200-strong by the time of the French invasion in 1798.

In terms of building methods and materials, the eighteenth century saw little divergence from earlier practices. The fortress-building activity remained a predominantly labourintensive one where tools and equipment employed had not changed much from earlier medieval and Roman times. No complex mechanical devices seem to have ever been employed for shifting large volumes of earth or lifting of huge weights.

The one notable introduction was the use of explosives (fornelli) to facilitate the quarrying and clearing of rocky sites, a practice which was used extensively during the construction of the coastal entrenchments in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Stone was the basic building block of fortress construction, its quarrying, transportation, and dressing similarly unchanged from earlier epochs. The size of the stone blocks was still that which was introduced in the earlier days of Hospitaller rule (course height of 41cms). The only development was the application of rustication, but this was largely limited to the smaller coastal works and was added

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE Lifting devices and digging and shovelling tools used in Maltese fortress construction a predominantly labour-intensive effort.

mainly for aesthetic rather than military purposes. The sandwiched form of rampart construction, with earth filling, remained the standard form of wall building, though outer face walls were given a steeper gradient in line with the formula established by Vauban and later engineers. Earth retained its importance as the best effective shock absorber in the formation of ramparts and continued to form the body of terrepleins and glacis, though the scarcity of soil in the

Maltese islands usually meant that the terreplein had largely to be composed of the rock and stone chippings generated during the quarrying of the ditch. The splintering qualities of this type of deblai made its use in parapets and other breastworks quite dangerous to the guncrews and defending troops sheltering behind parapets. As a result, local parapets continued to be revetted with dressed stone and designed to resist displacement rather than absorb the momentum of incoming shot. Although the

French engineers found little merit in such a manner of construction they tended to recommend the strengthen of the existing breastworks (by raising their height) rather than their substitution for earthen ones, given the magnitude of such a task.

The scarcity of earth also meant that even the usually more ephemeral field defences, as introduced in the shape of coastal and inland entrenchments during the course of the eighteenth century, had to be built of

RESOURCES ON THE WEB The Construction Industryand the Aesthetics of Military Architecture taken from Ayyubid Architecture by Terry Allen ISBN 0-944940-02-1

CLICK PHOTO TO ACCESS WEBSITE

This chapter deals with the development of a military style in masonry, what the existence of that style indicates about the attitude of Crusader and Muslim architects, and what effects milirtary construction campaigns may have had on the construction industry and Islamic civil architecture.

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WATER AND HOSPITALLER FORTIFICATIONS by Dr Stephen C Spiteri

With a growing urban population, however, the demand for water also became a problem in times of peace. By the end of the sixteenth century the collection of rainwater alone was no longer sufficient to meet the everyday needs of the inhabitants of Valletta. As a result the knights began to consider the possibility of utilizing alternative sources of supply situated well outside the city itself particularly those located in the highlands around the Boschetto area to the north of the island. In 1596, a Jesuit by the name of Padre Giacomo was brought in to advise on this matter. His proposals were immediately accepted and work taken in hand on the construction of an aqueduct although this had soon to be suspended once it became evident that the resulting cost was going to be far in excess of the original estimates.

Works, however, recommenced in 1610 on

the advice of another Jesuit by the name of Padre Natale Tomasucci and was continued under the direction of Bontadino Bontadin, a hydraulic expert from Bologna, assisted

by Giovanni Attard amongst others, a local capomastro who had indicated how the aqueduct could be carried across certain depression in the ground. The new aqueduct, commenced and completed during the magistracy of Alof de Wignacourt, became operational in 1615 and provided a more reliable and plentiful supply of water to the relief of the inhabitants of Valletta as well as the military authorities who could not have contemplated the water situation with confidence in the event of a another siege, particular at a time when the Turks had once again begun to venture deep into the western Mediterranean.

The Order’s military administration entrusted all matters related to the provisioning of its fortified places to a special commission of knights known as the Congregation of War and Fortification.

Among its members was the resident military engineer whose duty it was to look into the question of the supply of water.

Mederico Blondel, for example, was frequently instructed to inspect the water supply of Mdina and the harbour towns.

In 1708, this task was entrusted by Grand Master Perellos to the Italian architect Romano Carapecchia. His first task was to carry out a preliminary survey of all public water cisterns within the fortified enclaves of Floriana, Valletta, Fort St. Elmo, Fort Ricasoli, Fort St. Angelo, Vittoriosa, Bormla, Senglea and Cottonera. It would seem that the ageing Grand Master had been perturbed with the vulnerability of the aqueduct built in the previous century with the objective of supplying fresh spring

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Details from Carapecchia's report showing proposed solution for protecting wellhead from falling projectiles (above) and Valletta's system of cisterns (bottom left).. water to Valletta, particularly in the event of a siege.

The overriding concern then was for the quantity of stored water viz-a-vis inevitable leakages and the quality of the drinking water, particularly so in the hot summer months when contaminated water could very easily cause all kinds of diseases. The information requested of Carapecchia included a detailed assessment of the number of water cisterns in each of the inhabited fortified areas, their estimated maximum capacity and their existing capacity. Carapecchia’s report was completed by 24 May 1708 and the results of his survey were presented to the Grand Council of the Order in the form of report entitled Distinta Relazione di tutte le gebbie descritte nel infra Luoghi dal Cavre Fra Romano Carapecchia.

Again, in 1723, Carapecchia was asked by the newly elected Grand Master’s, Antonio Manuel de Vilhena, to compile a detailed assessment of the water storage situation in the Grand Harbour area. Unlike his previous report on this subject, Carapecchia’s ‘Ristretto generale di tutte le Cisterne e Gebbie publiche e private con I’acque ritrovate nelle medesime, tanto in questa cittd Valletta come nelle cittd di Vittoriosa, Senglea e Bormola. Ordinato dall’Emmo e Revmo Sigre Gran Maestro Fra Don Antonio Manoel de Vilhena e dalla c Vda Congregazione di Guerra, per la conservatione della Sua Sacra Religione, e i Suoi Popoli’, consisted of a meticulously compiled volume containing detail description of all public and private water containers in the indicated areas as

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE all public and private wells were filled up in the rainy season; • all rainwater from the streets and house roofs and terraces was to be collected, these were therefore to fitted with proper parapet walls and adequate pipe connections to the wells; • excessive use of rain water for irrigation purposes in gardens and cotton fields was to be prohibited; • the need to construct a number of large reservoirs adequately protected from artillery fire; • the necessity for the constant supervision of private wells to ensure that they were in a good state of repair; and finally, • the need to ensure that the supply of water for the large gardens at S. Antonio and S. Giuseppe would not be made at the expense of the regular flow of water to Valletta where it was more urgently needed.

The construction of wells and cisterns was a very straightforward exercise. The pliable and easily worked Globigerina limestone made the excavation of wells an easy, albeit laborious task. The porosity of the rock, however, necessitated that such subterranean containers had to be lined with a waterproof coating, a process known as

well as a number of suggestions intended to improve the quality and quantity of reservoirs and render them fit to resist artillery fire employing advanced ricochet techniques.

Carapecchia’s signed report was presented to Grand Master Vilhena on 20 January 1723, beautifully illustrated with watercolour drawings, amongst which were a plan of a reservoir in the ditch of Fort St Elmo; a plan of another reservoir protected by an earth cover with overlying timber boarding, this time situated near the Valletta Ferreria; a representation of a well situated in a courtyard having a pyramid type cover in the form of a timber framework resting on four legs firmly anchored to the ground so as to protect it from cannonballs; a drawing in perspective of the Valletta fortifications with reservoirs depicted in section; an annotated plan of a water system at Marsa and annotated block plans of Valletta, Vittoriosa, Senglea, Bormola and St. Angelo.

Romano Carapecchia’s report was concluded with a list of Avvertimenti d’osseruarsi per le bisogni et urgenze presenti in beneficio di questo Publico, which suggested a series of measures designed to address the water storage system of the harbour towns, namely: • The need for frequent inspections by the Maestri Fontanieri to ensure that

Detail from olan of Fort Manoel showing location of two large underground cisterns designed to collect all the run-off rainwater from around the fort. Top right different typr of 'mizieb' culverts for channeling water out of coastal batteries at Ras il-Qala (top) and Armier.

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bittumaura, which involved the application of a cementitious layer of a lime-based mixture added with pozzolana (imported from Naples) and deffun ( made from crushed pottery).

Not all rain water, however, was seen favourably by military engineers. Indeed, where fortifications were concerned, a perennial cause of spoliation and destruction were the torrential rains.

Francesco Marandon’s journal records, under the year 1745, how heavy rains brought down some walls at Mdina.

Similarly destructive was the torrential downpour of the previous winter when the revetment of the counterscarp wall at Birgu gave way under the weight of water.

Especially vulnerable to torrential downpours were the earthen-filled ramparts and glacis. In 1738 Marandon complained of the continual repairs that were necessary to replace the earth that was washed away by heavy rains. Unfinished works, too, were particularly susceptible to damage by the winter downpours. Frequently, orders were issued to the gangs labouring on the various sites to complete unfinished buildings before the onset of the rainy season so as to ensure ‘che le pioggie non deteriorino il gia

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fatto’. The most vulnerable were the exposed fills of ramparts set in an earth mortar, without lime, which quickly washed away with the rain. The winter rains also prevented lime-mortar from setting.

Being simply an uncovered packing of earth, the bastion’s terreplein tended to absorb rain water and thereby cause damage to the enveloping revetments. The most harmful were the torrential rains and to this end a number of culverts were generally built into the earthen packing of a rampart and these were made to open out into the face walls so as to drain out the water into the ditch as quickly as possible. At Fort Chambrai, for example, Marandon intentionally left a small gap (‘un piccolo voito [vuoto] di un palmo’) between the terreplein and the inner rampart wall (scorcia interiore) to help channel the seeping rainwater out through the flanks of the bastions.

Blondel, on his part, recommended that the uppermost layer of terreplein (‘il massicio della superficie della terra’) was to be constructed with a rubble fill made of large stones (‘con mazzacani e terra grivata mischiata al solito,’), thereby making it more difficult for the rain water to wash away.

‘cunetta ... accosta alla muraglia, e falsabraca larga da 30 in 35 piedi e profonda non meno di 15’.

To conclude this short presentation, it is also important to understand that as much as the Order was conscious of guaranteeing its garrisons with adequate supplies of water, it was likewise concerned with denying an invading enemy the possibility fact of tapping outlying water sources. This situation is well illustrated by the events of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, when the island was invested by a 24,000 strong Ottoman armada for more than three months. With such a huge army was access to adequate supplies of water was a principal concern for the Turkish commanders. They solved the situation by encamping near the springs in Marsa.

Unknown to the Turks, however, the knights, had taken the precaution of poisoning this and nearby sources of water.

The flax, hemp, and ordure that were thrown into the waterholes contributed much to the dysentery, typhus, and other infectious illnesses which quickly began to afflict the Turkish troops. Exhaustion, heat, and poor nutrition did the rest.

An important consideration during the excavation and formation of a dry ditch was the need to drain off rain water collecting inside it. Apart from defensive considerations, this was also important for health reasons as pools of stagnant water soon became breeding grounds for malarial mosquitoes. The draining of rainwater was usually affected by tilting the ground towards the mouth of the ditch and the open country or, in the case of the harbour fortifications, towards the sea. A common practice was to cut a cunette (cuvette), a vshaped trench which channelled the water in the centre of the ditch. Pietro Paolo Floriani’s written instructions to his assistant Francesco Buonamici prior to his departure from Malta in 1536 mention a

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Culverts and channels for run-off rainwater at Kassisu Entrenchment (from top left), Armier Entrenchment, Polverista Curtain (Floriana) and Fort Chambrai (bottom).

Ironically the very dryness and bleakness of Malta, if appearing initially extremely disagreeable to both L’Isle Adam and the eight commissioners before him when compared to the larger and more fertile Rhodes that had left behind, was to prove its very salvation. Malta was a natural fortress.

Sources Denis De Lucca, Romano Carapecchia: Master of Baroque Architecture in Early Eighteenth Century Malta (Malta, 1999) Alison Hoppen, The Fortification of Malta by the Knights of the Order of St John (Edinburgh, 1979).

Roger de Giorgio, A City by an Order (Malta, 1985) Stephen C Spiteri, The Art of Fortress Building in Hospitaller Malta (Malta, 2007/8) Stephen C Spiteri, Fortresses of the Knights (Malta, 2001)

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ALCUNE RIFLESSIONI SULLA RICOSTRUZIONE DEL LUOGO FORTE DI MDINA A MALTA DOPO IL TERREMOTO DEL 1693.

by Prof. Denis de Lucca

Un libro intrigante nella Biblioteca Nazionale di Malta alla Valletta racconta in modo colorito il terremoto del 1693 che colpì la Sicilia e Malta. Il libro scritto da John Shower è intitolato Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica, England, Sicily, Malta, etc., e ha come sottotitolo, With a Particular, Historical Account of those and divers other Earthquakes. Inizio la mia relazione con una citazione da questo libro dove John Shower riassume la situazione a Malta solo dopo cinque giorni dal terremoto. È scritto in stile barocco, drammatico e retorico, e non senza qualche esagerazione, ma che nonostante rende piacevole la lettura: ‘All the Account we have yet of the further effects of this Earthquake, and the Extent of it to the Island of Malta, is in a Letter from thence, dated January 16, publish’d by Authority. On the 9th Instant about ten at Night happened here an Earthquake, and another on the 11th at three in the Afternoon: The last was so violent, and lasted so long, that everybody thought this City would have been quite destroyed. The Roof of the Church of Our Lady de Pelay was thrown down, with part of that of St. Laurence: The Church and College of the Jesuits also suffered very much: but the Cathedral and the Church of la Gusmane received the greatest damage, and are so ruined that they can hardly be repaired. Most of the Houses are extremely shatter’d and deserted by the Inhabitants, who lie now in Grotto’s,

and under Tents in the Fields. The great Master was then abroad a hunting and he and all his Company were in great Danger by the falling of a Mountain near them. We cannot yet tell the Particulars of the Loss this Island hath sustained, but only in general, that ‘tis very great, and the Consternation of the Inhabitants inexpressible, which hath received a new Addition by the sad Accounts we have from Sicily, of the same Calamity that hath befallen their Island, in a more terrible manner – Whereof I have given particular Account yet extant’ (1) A Malta, il primo vero resoconto del terremoto fu scritto in modo assai insolito. Il notaio Dott Mario Antonio Brancati stendeva l’ultimo testamento nella casa dell’anziana zitella, Grazia Cassar a Mqabba, quel giorno di domenica 11 gennaio, quando il terremoto colpì l’isola con tutta la sua violenza. “Verso le due pomeridiane” scrisse il notaio in latino, interrerompendo la scrittura del testamento di Grazia, ‘si sentì un rombo distante come quello di un carro da guerra, la casa di Grazia da prima si scosse poi oscillò come la vela di una nave in burrasca, e la terra sembrò di scuotersi dalle proprie fondamenta’ (2) Come si può ben immaginare, le scosse del terremoto si sentirono da tutte le parti di Malta e di Gozo, ma con diversa intensità. Il primo terremoto del venerdì nove, fu abbastanza mite, e non fece danni alle abitazioni (3),benché la popolazione fosse naturalmente terrorizzata e presa dal panico, situazione aggravata dal buio di una notte d’inverno. La tragedia avvenne il giorno undici, causando danni ovunque alla Valletta e alle altre città e ai villaggi di Malta e di Gozo, e in modo particolare alla vecchia citta capitale di Mdina.

Il panico e la paura si disseminarono per le isole. La notte dell’undici, molta gente rimase fuori casa e passò la notte e altre notti ancora all’aperto, la gente della Valletta ‘nel piano della Floriana’ (4).

Nella città di Senglea gli abitanti abbandonarono le loro case e trovarono rifugio sulle galere e altre imbarcazioni ancorate nel porto. Altri lasciarono la città dalla porta principale e presero d’assalto il fossato di fronte alla città di

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Cospicua e innalzarono tende che legarono con corde ad anelli di ferro nelle mura dei bastioni e le fissarono a pali di legno forte(5). Nessuna mortalità a causa del terremoto è ufficialmente registrata, benché si possa desumere che ci furono casi di persone che morirono per cause naturali, o soccomberono, più tardi alle ferite sostenute dalle pietre cadenti. Un numero considerevole di maltesi, comunque, perirono in Sicilia durante il terremoto, quando la Recettoria dell’Ordine di Malta ad Augusta crollò e molti maltesi che lavoravano sulle galere persero la vita sotto le macerie dei forni.

Il 16 di gennaio il Gran Maestro istituì una commissione di tre cavalieri, Frà Claudio de Moretton Chabrillan, Frà Roberto Solaro il giovane e Frà Don Ignatio Lores con l’incarico di valutare la condizione di tutti gli edifici della Valletta, di Vittoriosa e di Senglea (6). Ai commissari venne data l’autorità di dar ordine alla demolizione di edifici che furono considerati di pericolo alle case adiacenti e al pubblico; tale spesa da addebitare ai proprietari rispettivi o al Comun Tesoro da recuperare dall’introito di affitti o dal valore di altre proprietà in possesso dei proprietari. Il cavaliere Fra Mederico Blondel des Croisettes, fratello del grande Francois Blondel e capo ingegnere dell’Ordine residente a Malta e i capomastri maltesi Giovanni Barbara e Vincenzo Casanova accompagnarono i commissari per la Valletta e per le Tre Città. Il loro rapporto, sottomesso solo sei giorni più tardi, riportò come premessa il fatto che i commissari e i capo mastri girarono per tutta la Valletta e ispezionarono ogni edificio indicato loro e che fu considerato come aver riportato danni seri. Nel rapporto venne aggiunto che quegli edifici considerati facilmente riparabili non furono inclusi nell’elenco ‘il cui numero è molto considerabile, non essendovene forse una casa' (7) .

Si notò che la facciata della vecchia Albergia di Castiglia in Strada S. Giacomo si era distaccata dal corpo principale dell’edificio e dai muri trasversali principali, e che richiese attenzione immediata per prevenire il collasso(8) . Nell’Albergia d’Aragona, la facciata principale come pure quella adiacente alla chiesa di Nostra Signora

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del Pilar si erano pericolosamente inclinate all’infuori nella direzione della strada e avevano bisogno di essere puntellate immediatamente. La pietra per il restauro dell’Albergia d’Aragona venne portata da una cava aperta per tale scopo nella piazza di fronte(9).

Tutte le chiese principali della Valletta, in varia misura di gravità, riportarono ogni sorta di danni. La chiesa di San Giacomo fu duramente colpita e nonostante il restauro venisse subito effettuato, fu ancora in cattivo stato verso la fine del diciassettesimo secolo(10). La volta della chiesa dei Carmelitani riportò crepe in diversi posti, e su parere degli architetti e sull’insistenza dei commissari, la chiesa fu subito chiusa al culto pubblico11. La chiesa di Nostra Signora del Pilar in Strada San Michele, che come la chiesa di San Giacomo fu più tardi ricostruita dall’architetto romano e allievo di Carlo Fontana, Carapecchia all’inizio del secolo diciottesimo, perse la cupola(12) e la chiesa dei Gesuiti subì gravi danni(13). Sembrerebbe strano che le chiese di San Giovanni e del Gesù, due delle chiese più importanti della Valletta, non furono citate nel rapporto dei commissari, ma tale omissione potrebbe essere dovuta al fatto che ai commissari venne dato l’incarico di elencare solo quegli edifici che furono considerati possibilmente un pericolo alle case adiacenti e ai pedoni. Secondo De Soldanis, la Chiesa Conventuale di San Giovanni subì pure lievi danni(14) .L’edificio del Collegium Melitense appartenente ai Gesuiti dalla parte di Strada della Fontana sviluppò crepe estensive e doveva essere demolito(15).

Anche i frati francescani conventuali chiesero aiuto dal Tesoro dell’Ordine per il restauro del convento in Strada

San Giorgio che secondo loro ‘si ritrova di maniera sconquassata dalli terremoti, che minaccia rovina d’ogni parte’(16). La chiesa e il convento di Santa Maria del Gesù subì solo danni minori(17), ma una casa adiacente alla chiesa in Strada del Monte doveva essere demolita per impedire il collasso e danni alle cappelle laterali della chiesa(18). All’interno della chiesa dei frati domenicani di Porto Salvo, il muro principale doveva essere demolito per i danni subiti e ricostruito(19). La Veneranda Assemblea della Chiesa Conventuale che aveva subito danni alla residenza principale di fronte a San Giovanni come pure ad altre proprietà alla Valletta, chiese pure aiuti finanziari al Tesoro dell’Ordine(20). I commissari inclusero nel loro elenco di edifici destinati alla demolizione una casa all’angolo della loggia che dava sulla Piazza della Tesoreria che fu di proprietà di Pompeo de Fiore, il quale aveva introdotto la stampa a Malta; una casa in Strada San Paolo dietro il Collegio dei Gesuiti; la residenza di un Dott. Crispo, un funzionario alle dipendenze dell’Inquisitore, in Strada San Rocco;

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un edificio in Strada San Giovanni Battista, angolo con Strada del Fianco; due case nella Scesa della Dogana, e un’altra di proprietà di Gio. Paolo Buttigieg, un farmacista, accanto alla chiesa di Santa Orsola(21). Sarebbe difficile identificare alcuni edifici perché i dettagli forniti sulla loro esatta locazione sono assai scarni.

I danni subiti nelle Tre Città furono molto meno di quelli riportati dentro la Valletta come viene riferito. Alla Vittoriosa, i commissari, su parere di Blondel, Barbara e Casanova, raccomandarono solo la demolizione del Palazzo Vecchio ‘quasi già distrutto dall’antichità’ e una vecchia casa vicino alla Porta Marina(22). Si sa da altre fonti, comunque, che la chiesa parrocchiale di San Lorenzo subì danni considerevoli(23). I commissari notarono con sollievo che gli effetti del terremoto alla Cospicua furono insignificanti, dove solo una casa

Depictions of Mdina in the mid-16th century, after D'Aleccio (top left and below).

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE piccola vicino al Manderaggio era stata danneggiata, ma anche qui, si sa da altre fonti che il convento dei Carmelitani Scalzi di Santa Teresa aveva pure subito qualche danno(24).

Il luogo forte di Mdina pure aveva avuto la sua parte di danni, ma nonostante, la città vecchia fu omessa dalle istruzioni originali del Gran Maestro consegnate alla commissione ufficiale del terremoto. La parte orientale di Mdina, dove il terreno discende bruscamente ad un’altura considerevole, si trova su uno strato di argilla di circa 50 piedi di profondità che riposa su un letto di pietra calcarea globigerina ad un angolo acuto di pendio(25). Questa è, infatti, la zona che subì più danni dal terremoto, e fu principalmente qui che l’aspetto della città vecchia fu completamente cambiato dalla ricostruzione post-terremoto, dal medioevo fino alla sua attuale fisionomia barocca. Preoccupati dalla mancanza d’interesse dell’Ordine, il Capitano della Verga e i Giurati di Mdina mandarono una petizione al Gran Maestro il 21 di febbraio e lo esortarono con urgenza di prendere nota dei danni gravi riportati dentro la città murata e di fornire i mezzi per i dovuti rimedi. Solo allora all’ingegnere Mederico Blondel fu ordinato di condurre una dettagliata perizia di Mdina. Egli infatti riferì che il terremoto fu in realtà il colmo che causò il collasso o danni seri a molti edifici che, a parte che furono vecchi, erano stati abbandonati o trascurati per molti anni(26). Blondel fece presente la questione degli ordini immediati ai proprietari di edifici di ripararli subito, e ai proprietari di case abbandonate di obbligarli di vendere le loro proprietà a prezzo fissato secondo la corrente pragmatica. Egli, comunque, previde qui una difficoltà pratica che ‘la maggior parte (delle case) appartengono a persone esenti dalla giurisdizione di Vostra Eminenza’. Sebbene la cattedrale subisse danni considerevoli e di natura grave, non fu completamente distrutta, ma solo in parte collapsum(27). Fu, comunque, una vecchia struttura, avente visibilmente segni di età, e la decisione di sostituirla con un nuovo edificio, era stata presa molto prima dell’anno 1693. La decisione di ricostruire la cattedrale, partendo dal coro barocco, fu, infatti, presa nel 1679

sotto la guida dell’architetto maltese Lorenzo Gafà che ne aveva fatto il disegno e il modello. Il fatto che il coro, una nuova struttura, era l’unica parte della cattedrale a non subire danni durante il terremoto, è un tributo alle abilità architettoniche e ingegneristiche di Gafà. Ma il terremoto fece sì che i lavori di ricostruzione riprendessero subito e di fatti il ritmo della ricostruzione fu accelerato. Gafà, Barbara, Casanova e Blondel, tutti nomi che affollano la storia architettonica del periodo, furono chiamati per sottomere le loro vedute sulla sicurezza strutturale della cattedrale(28), e in aprile dello stesso anno il Capitolo decise di procedere con la ricostruzione secondo il piano e il modello in legno presentato da Gafà e approvato dai suoi colleghi professionisti. Il palazzo vescovile contemporaneo alla cattedrale, e il seminario, completarono lo straordinario complesso nel 1733. Molte mura dei bastioni di Mdina furono danneggiate seriamente e il ponte che dà alla porta principale della Città sviluppò delle crepe pericolose negli archi d’appoggio(29).

Nel sobborgo di Rabat, il convento dei domenicani ebbe alcune parti lesionate seriamente, e il Signor Ingegnere Lorenzo Gafà raccomandò, dopo essergli stato richiesto parere, un intervento immediato per evitare maggior danno(30). Nel frattempo, la comunità domenicana a Rabat decise di utilizzare la somma di 30 onze precedentemente lasciata da Fra Statela di Noto per il restauro del loro convento a Rabat . Un altro edificio importante a Rabat che figura nell’elenco dei danni subiti dal terremoto è la chiesa parrocchiale di San Paolo. Il campanile crollò, l’abside del coro cedette e la cupola subì gravi danni. Alcuni dettagli molto interessanti affiorano da due volumi manoscritti conservati negli archivi del Collegio della chiesa di San Paolo, dove si legge che Lorenzo Gafà, ‘architettore di detta fabrica’(31), disegnò un muro massiccio d’appoggio inteso a stabilizzare il muro posteriore del coro, e che si può vedere tutt’oggi; che il capomastro Salvo Borg di Casal Siggiewi disegnò il nuovo campanile, e che Giovanni Barbara fu il responsabile per il restauro della cupola. Giovanni Barbara affittò un calesse per andare

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alla Valletta per consultare il vescovo, ma il procuratore della chiesa doveva andare a cavallo per lo stesso scopo. I pannelli di vetro per le finestre della cupola furono comprati da un negoziante alla Valletta, mentre uno stagnaio, anche egli abitante della Valletta, fu impiegato a brasare le giunture in piombo per il fissaggio dei pannelli di vetro. Il capo architetto responsabile dell’intero progetto, Il Gafà, ricevette 10 scudi in tre diversi pagamenti ‘per i suoi disegni e travagli in detta chiesa’ tra i mesi di giugno e di dicembre del 1693.(32) Il 20 settembre 1722, ventinove anni dopo il terremoto, il Gran Maestro Manoel de Vilhena prese ‘possesso’ di Mdina con una cerimonia barocca senza precedenti. Per celebrare l’avvenimento, tutte le strade principali furono adornate con damasco pesante e con paramenti e la piazza appena dentro la vecchia porta principale fu decorata da un arco trionfale in legno eretto dal capo falegname il Maestro Andrea Camilleri secondo il disegno di Pietro Paolo Troisi ‘della Zecca’, architetto della municipalità di Mdina. Il quadro pittoresco di questa bellissima opera di fantasia architettonica fu fatto dal pittore Aloisio Buhagiar. Impressionato da questi segni di munificenza e dal caloroso benvenuto estesogli, il Gran Maestro, ordinò il restauro della Città Vecchia. Lo fece pubblicando un chirografo magistrale(33) il 3 novembre 1722: ‘Avendo considerato, dopo aver letto il rapporto del nostro Ingegnere, la necessità assoluta di restaurare le mura e le fortificazioni della nostra amata città Notabile che, con il passar del tempo, sono in uno stato di sfacelo e di costruire una moderna strada coperta sul bastione principale per rendere la città difendibile nell’eventualità di un attacco nemico, Noi, Manoel de Vilhena, autorizziamo i Magistrati della Municipalità delle nostre gloriose città della Valletta, Senglea, Vittoriose e Burmola di amministrare a tali effetti 350 scudi a settimana in aggiunta alle 400 scudi già amministrate secondo i nostri ordini. Specifichiamo inoltre che il primo pagamento debba essere fatto entro sabato prossimo, da essere

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE continuato su base settimanale finché non ci siano ordini al contrario’.

In un ulteriore chirografo (34) datato 18 marzo 1723, Vilhena ordinò la Municipalità di amministrare un’aggiunta di 350 scudi a settimana per accelerare il lavoro già iniziato sulle fortificazioni di Mdina. Ma il 4 giugno di quello stesso anno, il Gran Maestro revocò quest’ordine e stipulò l’amministrazione settimanale di 300 scudi. I veri lavori sulle fortificazioni della Mdina iniziarono a luglio del 1722 sotto la direzione di Carlo Francesco de Mondion, l’ingegnero militare dell’Ordine e allievo del grande Vauban, che aveva allora presentato uno schema di disegno dettagliato per lo scopo intitolato ‘Plan et Profils de la Citte Vielle ou Citte Notable de Malte’.

Questo piano principale, che fu accompagnato da parecchi disegni di lavoro, fu eventualmente seguito da piani ulteriori datati 1723, 1725 e 1730.

Dopo il 1722, lo sviluppo di Mdina prese la forma seguente, presentata per motivi di chiarezza in ordine cronologico con riferimento alle fonti originali su cui l’informazione è basata: 1722 – Lavoro di sgombro preliminare sulle vecchie fortificazioni (35) Il 24 luglio 1722 iniziarono i lavori sulle bastioni cinquecentesche e seicentesche di fronte a Rabat. Per tale motivo il fossato a fianco del bastione eretto dal Gran Maestro De Redin fu pulito dalle macerie di costruzione della vecchia cattedrale e altri edifici, che si erano accumulate dopo il terremoto del 1693. Verso il 29 agosto quest’opera di rimozione fu praticamente completata e cominciarono i lavori con l’obiettivo di demolire parte del vecchio muro verticale non portante per inserire una nuova porta principale monumentale accanto a quella vecchia. Il 10 ottobre, i lavori di demolizione iniziarono pure nella zona della vecchia ‘Porta dei Greci’ per lo stesso scopo di erigere una nuova porta. Durante l’anno corrente, comunque, i lavori si concentrarono sulla pulitura e sull’allineamento del fossato esistente e sulla demolizione della vecchia controscarpa. Durante qualche stadio dei lavori, iniziarono pure le operazioni sull’allineamento e sul miglioramento della strada principale

Proposedgraphic reconstruction of the Mdina Cathedral c. 1565 (by Stephen C. Spiteri)

che collega Mdina alla Valletta. Questi lavori furono adempiti sono la direzione dei capomastri Salvo Galea e Giuseppe Vella mentre quelli dentro Mdina furono eseguiti sotto la direzione generale di Petruzzo Debono e Simone Mifsud.

edifici vecchi medioevali dietro detta porta ed erigendo la nuova magnifica porta d’ingresso fu iniziata e completata alla fine dell’anno. La costruzione della nuova ‘Porta dei Greci’ porta anche la data dell’anno 1724.

1723 – Inizio della fase di costruzione: fortificazioni esterne e falsabraga dietro il Palazzo Magistrale (36).

1725- Costruzione della nuova Torre dello Stendardo e del Palazzo Magistrale(38)

Nei primi mesi di quest’anno, iniziarono i lavori di allargamento e di approfondimento del fossato libero da macerie e si cominciò a lavorare sulla nuova controscarpa. In aprile il lavoro su questa controscarpa fu praticamente completato e si registrò progresso anche sulla nuova strada coperta con piazze d’armi, opere traverse, parapetti e spalto. A questo punto un nuovo capomastro – Salvo Borg – appare in scena. Quest’anno corrente vide pure l’inizio dei lavori della falsabraga dietro il vecchio Palazzo Magistrale, costruito negli anni del 1530 dal Gran Maestro Philippe Villiers de L’Isle Adam.

Dopo l’erezione della nuova ‘Porta dei Greci’, i lavori in questa zona furono estesi nel 1725 e compresero il muro portante di San Pietro e il bastione adiacente. Il 28 luglio il lavoro di demolizione su questo bastione fu iniziato. Nel frattempo il 26 maggio i primi carri di pietra per la ricostruzione della vecchia Torre dello Stendardo e il Palazzo Magistrale dentro la porta principale arrivarono ed il lavoro su questi due edifici fu subito iniziato sotto la direzione del capomastro Petruzzo Debono e sui disegni consegnatigli da Mondion.

1724-Costruzione delle Porte d’Ingresso (37) Il lavoro iniziato nel 1722 sul bastione De Redin fu finalmente concluso e l’operazione simultanea del sigillo della vecchia porta principale demolendo gli

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1726– La costruzione del nuovo Palazzo Municipale (39) Nel mese di maggio dell’anno corrente il lavoro di demolizione, che fu in corso già da qualche tempo nella zona del bastione di San Pietro all’angolo sudovest, fu intensificato. Nel frattempo,

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE furono completati per tutti gli effetti come pure la strada Mdina-Valletta e le principali fortificazioni anteriori.

Quest’anno vide pure gli inizi dei lavori alla nuova chiesa di S. Rocco, che doveva sostituire la vecchia chiesetta di Santa Maria della Porta che fu demolita nel 1723 per dare spazio alla nuova entrata principale. Pure nel 1728, la forma definitiva delle piazze di San Publio e di San Paolo fu stabilita e tutti i nuovi lavori furono benedetti cerimoniosamente dal Vescovo Alpheran de Bussan tra grandi festività, tra cui una ‘luminaria’.

Mondion's new gate.

nella zona dell’entrata principale, i lavori sulla Torre dello Stendardo erano stati completati e due stemme in marmo di Francesco Zahra venne inserito nel nuovo edificio (6 luglio). Dopo il mese di luglio, la maggioranza delle forze lavorative, che adesso raggiunse il numero di 500 operai maltesi a pagamento, venne spostata ai lavori sul sito del nuovo Palazzo Magistrale di fronte alla torre. Verso settembre una nuova operazione di costruzione fu inaugurata quando le pietre vennero trasportate su carri al sito del nuovo proposto Palazzo Municipale in piazza San Paolo e a dicembre le fondamenta di questo secondo palazzo furono allestite sotto la diretta direzione di Francois de Mondion, di Francesco Zahra e di Petruzzo Debono.

1727- Ripristino dei lavori al Palazzo Magistrale e al Palazzo Municipale(40) L’anno corrente vide il progresso dei lavori iniziati negli anni precedenti al Palazzo Magistrale con l’adiacente Tribunale e al Palazzo Municipale accanto alla piazza di San Paolo. Verso settembre l’opera del nuovo muro portante di San Pietro fu completato con l’erezione del parapetto strombo.

1729-31 - La costruzione della chiesa di San Rocco, del monastero di San Pietro e di altri edifici (42) I quattro anni correnti furono segnati da attività di costruzione largamente eseguite da persone private che furono attratte a Mdina dagli incentivi attraenti di Vilhena come spiegato nel chirografo magistrale il 22 gennaio 1727. Le strade principali che furono soggette a tale attività di costruzione furono Strada Villegaignon e Strada San Paolo. Nel 1731, la nuova chiesa di San Rocco fu completata con successo e nel 1732 alcuni restauri furono eseguiti sul muro portante dietro la cattedrale su ordini di Mondion, che pure condusse uno studio sulla fattibilità di erigere un nuovo bastione. Pure in quell’anno il lavoro incominciato nel 1719 al monastero di San Pietro delle suore benedettine venne portato a termine e venne stabilito il nuovo reticolo di strade generato dal nuovo edificio.

1733-6 – La costruzione del Seminario Vescovile e dell’Armeria (43)

1728-Allineamento delle piazze di San Publio e di San Paolo (41)

Le ultime tre opere maggiori eseguite a Mdina durante il principato di Vilhena furono la costruzione del Seminario Vescovile nel 1733 e l’erezione della nuova Armeria in Strada Villegaignon costruita su disegno di Petruzzo Debono nel 1734. Lavori ulteriori eseguiti dopo la morte del Gran Maestro nel 1736 compresero la costruzione del Bastione dietro la cattedrale tra il 1739 e il 1746.

Durante quest’anno il Palazzo Magistrale e il Palazzo Municipale

Si potrebbe dedurre dalla tabella cronologica dello sviluppo edile come

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elencato sopra che il lavoro alle fortificazioni di Mdina fu in tutti i rispetti correlato alla ripianificazione interna della vecchia città medioevale, il cui tessuto fu largamente danneggiato dal terremoto del 1693. Per avere una valutazione critica più dettagliata dei miglioramenti eseguiti sarebbe opportuno di dividere la città in tre zone – la zona dell’entrata principale, la zona della cattedrale e la zona della ‘Porta dei Greci’.

La zona dell’entrata principale Prima della ripianificazione del 1722 da parte di Mondion, il piano dell’entrata principale prese una forma che segue un’antica bozza del piano della città conservato negli archivi della cattedrale a Mdina(44) . Gli aspetti principali di questo piano sono la mancanza di fortificazioni proprie esterne, la presenza di un arco trionfale eretto qui nel 1609, una piccola chiesa romanica che reca il nome di Santa Maria della Porta, un’interessante disposizione di entrata triplice separata da una fila di negozi e in fine il vecchio Palazzo Magistrale del Gran Maestro L’Isle Adam la cui entrata, comunque, era dalla parte di una piccola piazza in Strada San Paolo. Di queste caratteristiche la più interessante fu la disposizione dell’entrata triplice, in modo particolare il posizionamento della seconda porta in relazione alle porte di ingresso e di uscita. Questa disposizione che forzava il nemico di viaggiare per una rotta indiretta prima di penetrare la città propria era una pratica comune nelle città medioevali in Africa e in Sicilia. Secondo il piano della Mdina si può anche notare i tre grandi depositi e la loggia a doppio arco nell’ ‘Ingresso Primo’ costruita per commemorare il ‘possesso’ del Gran Maestro De Paule (1623-36). Il piano antecedente il 1722 della zona dell’entrata principale di Mdina viene anche rilevato su una scala alquanto più piccola nelle bozze dei disegni delle fortificazioni datate 1722 e 1723 del Mondion ma non, si potrebbe notare, in un piano di disegno più tardo dell’ingegnere nel 1725 circa. In quest’ultimo piano, tutto il sistema di fortificazioni è riformato, il sistema di entrata triplice demolito e lo spazio parzialmente incorporato nel cortile anteriore del nuovo Palazzo Magistrale e in fine, la loggia del Gran Maestro De

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE Paule con i suoi depositi e negozi adiacenti furono sostituiti dall’ala anteriore del nuovo palazzo. La piccola vecchia piazza fu pure estesa da incorporare lo spazio finora occupato dalla chiesetta di Santa Maria della Porta con il deposito adiacente. Si può notare che l’unica caratteristica della zona dell’entrata medioevale che sopravvisse, fu l’isolato di case private e di negozi di fronte alla strada conosciuta oggi come Strada Inguanez.

Più tardi, nel 1947, questo isolato fu demolito per accomodare la costruzione di una nuova ala per il Palazzo Magistrale mentre le case private dal lato opposto della stessa strada furono intorno l’anno 1735 integrate nel monastero di San Pietro da formare una facciata vuota e arcigna che fece tanto per rovinare la scala della ripianificazione del Mondion.

Ci sono due aspetti della ripianificazione della zona dell’entrata principale del 1722-28. In primo luogo ci fu l’approfondimento e l’allargamento del fossato esistente, la formazione di una nuova controscarpa con la sua strada coperta, e la riformazione della spalto di fronte al sobborgo di Rabat. I lavori furono governati da una serie di specifiche (45) stabilite da Mondion il 31 luglio 1722. In secondo luogo ci fu la trasformazione della zona d’entrata in uno scenario teatrale tipicamente barocco. A lavori compiuti, lo spazio

aperto qui era generato da tre edifici – il nuovo ingresso (1724), la Torre dello Stendardo (1725) e il Palazzo Magistrale (1726). Con riferimento al piano del 1725, camminando per la nuova strada allineata Valletta-Mdina, si entrava in uno spazio triangolare occupato da una piazza d’armi della strada coperta e protetto da ambedue i lati da opere traverse. Questo spazio ribassato diede accesso al ponte in pietra che attraversava il nuovo fossato e lo separava dalla nuova porta con un ponte levatoio quadrato e di legno.

Attraversando questo ponte, la scena era dominata da una porta magnifica, la cui costruzione fu soggetta da una seconda serie di specifiche stabilite da Mondion il 14 maggio 1724.

Entrando la porta principale di Mdina ci si trova in piazza San Publio. Il piano di Mdina del 1725 rivela, che all’inizio del secolo diciottesimo questa piazza era infinitamente più interessante architettonicamente di quella che è oggi.

Per primo benché i tre lati della piazza fossero occupati dalla Torre dello Stendardo, la facciata posteriore della porta principale e il Palazzo Magistrale furono in gran parte come oggi, un’importante differenza fu la presenza di tre negozi strategicamente ubicati nell’isolato proiettato accanto al Palazzo Magistrale la cui congiunzione fu occupata da una nicchia dedicata a San Paolo per commemorare il terremoto del

Plan by Mondion, showing existing and projected works during the reconstruction of the Mdina main gate area and the Torre Mastra (NLM).

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Mondion's Torre dello Standardo.

1693. Quel che appare essere stato anche molto differente nel 1725 fu l’isolato che chiudeva il quarto lato della Piazza. Questo sembrerebbe essere stato composto da un numero di case private a due piani posti in una fila adiacente alla piccola chiesa di Sant’Agata disegnata da Lorenzo Gafà dopo il terremoto,nell’anno 1694.

La Torre dello Stendardo recostruita nel 1725 è una costruzione tipica militare del diciottesimo secolo modellata sulle torri di Mederico Blondel risalenti al diciassettesimo secolo. Secondo i documenti (46) aveva due funzioni, quella di piattaforma elevata sopra la porta della città e quella di fortezza dominando il muro portante dell’entrata principale. L’aspetto austero della Torre dello Stendardo con i due stemmi fatti dallo scultore maltese Francesco Zahra è controbilanciato dal lato opposto dalla magnificenza del Palazzo Magistrale costruito nel 1725 ‘secondo il disegno dato dal Sig. Ingegnere Cavaliere de Mondion’(47). Tutto il complesso è pianificato attorno a un grande cortile centrale, un lato del quale fu occupato dal Tribunale, mentre i rimanenti tre lati furono avviluppati dal Palazzo Magistrale. Molto più interessante della disposizione planimetrica è il trattamento della facciata del cortile anteriore, il Tribunale e il retro del grande edificio dominando il muro portante ad est delle fortificazioni. In contrasto alla varietà dinamica di magnifici stemmi, un alto rilievo di

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE bronzo del gran maestro, finestre e portali ornati e loggiate di archi ellittici di gusto assai teatrale rappresentata nelle facciate del cortile anteriore, il disegno della facciata del Tribunale nella piazza di San Paolo è più formale e ripetitivo. Qui la caratteristica principale è la campata centrale che è più pregiata di quella del Palazzo Magistrale perché il vuoto sopra l’entrata viene risolto tramite un recesso a forma di nicchia posto tra i pilastri stile Corinto con una fortissima presenza scultorea di gusto decisamente francese. La facciata posteriore del Palazzo Magistrale offre un contrasto completo alle altre facciate dell’edificio rivelando una somiglianza notevole allo stile vaubanesco dell’entrata principale di Mdina. Benché largamente distrutta per causa di fondamenta difettose, si può vedere che questa facciata fu concepita come una serie di pilastri pesantemente bugnati e cornici modanate. Una caratteristica significante nel disegno generale è la qualità certa della cornice del tetto e l’utilizzo di ornamenti in forma di palle per coronare il legame tra i pilastri e questa cornice.

Prima di parlare della piazza della Cattedrale, vorrei aggiungere un dettaglio per quel che riguarda la ripianificazione dell’entrata principale del Mondion. Questo implica la chiusura del vicolo stretto che secondo il piano medioevale collegava Strada Inguanez con un’altra strada, adesso chiusa, stendendosi tra Strada Villegaignon e Piazza San Paolo di fronte al Tribunale.

Mentre il vicolo fu chiuso nell’anno 1725 circa, la strada sopravvisse a questa fase di cambiamenti. Questo implicava che la piazza di fronte al Tribunale era affiancata da due strade strette separate da case private a due piani, abbellendo pertanto la facciata del nuovo edificio del Tribunale. Ma nell’anno 1735 o incirca, tanto la strada in questione, quanto le case private furono assorbite dal monastero di San Pietro che in quell’epoca necessitava una nuova sistemazione.

La zona della Cattedrale Ci sono due aspetti riguardanti lo sviluppo della zona della Cattedrale a Mdina. In primo luogo ci fu la trasformazione della vecchia piazza

medioevale di fronte alla cattedrale dovuta all’erezione di quattro magnifici edifici – la stupenda cattedrale di Lorenzo Gafà (1697), il Palazzo del Vescovo (1718-1719), il Palazzo Municipale di Mondion (1726), e il Seminario Vescovile (1733). In secondo luogo, ci fu la ricostruzione di diversi isolati in Strada Villegaignon e in Strada San Paolo, che governano gli avvicinamenti alla piazza. Questi comprendevano almeno due palazzi e due chiese (la chiesa e il convento dei carmelitani del 1690 e la chiesa di San Rocco del 1728) in Strada Villegaignon e una casa grande in Strada San Paolo.

Uno dei due palazzi in Strada Villegaignon – quello di fronte Casa Testaferrata – fu ricostruito nel 1734 secondo il disegno di Petruzzo Debono, e fu usato da armeria della città dopo che questa fu rimossa dal sito adesso occupato dal Palazzo Municipale.

L’edificio originale aveva una volta accomodato la vecchia ‘Corte Capitaniale’ e la ‘Corte Guratale’ prima del loro rispettivo trasferimento ai nuovi palazzi, quello Magistrale e quello Municipale. La ripianificazione della zona della cattedrale fu conclusa nel 1739 quando iniziarono i lavori per la costruzione di un nuovo bastione dietro la cattedrale. Questo bastione che fu completato solo nel 1746 fu costruito secondo i disegni dell’ingegnere Francesco Marandon secondo alcuni disegni lasciati dal suo predecessore Mondion dopo che questi aveva condotto uno studio di questo settore vulnerabile delle fortificazioni nel 1732.

Un paragone tra il piano moderno di Mdina e il piano del 1725 ci consenta di valutare in modo chiaro lo sviluppo della vecchia Piazza Medioevale di fronte alla cattedrale. Nel 1725, il piccolo spazio rettangolare aperto di fronte alla cattedrale era in modo ovvio inadeguato visto il disegno grandioso del Gafà. Ma dopo 1693, questo spazio fu aumentato a causa della demolizione di due isolati grandi che racchiudevano la cattedrale dalla parte meridionale e dalla susseguente erezione del Palazzo Vescovile e del Seminario. Lo spazio aperto adesso prese la forma di un’irregolare L confinando le due facciate principali della cattedrale. Quel che sembra strano è che per qualche motivo o altro, il vecchio isolato

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medioevale di fronte alla facciata principale della cattedrale fu lasciato a rimanervi al fine del settecento quando fu demolito durante le insurrezioni contro la guarnigione francese di Napoleone. Questo è un fatto importante, perché implica che il centro di Mdina resistette le idee barocche di ripianificazione della Valletta e invece ritenne il suo carattere medioevale di un borgo chiuso e multi accessibile.

Pertanto si è affacciati dalla perplessa dicotomia barocca medioevale che sembra aver caratterizzato il piano urbanistico del diciottesimo secolo di Mdina. Da un lato ci fu la zona dell’entrata principale che dall’esito dello schema di Mondion assunse un carattere molto barocco e francese mentre dall’altro canto ci fu la zona della cattedrale che ritenne il suo aspetto medioevale nonostante che i nuovi edifici ivi costruiti furono concepiti e fatti secondo l’idioma ‘moderno’.

L’opus magnum della zona della cattedrale è la magnifica cattedrale barocca di Lorenzo Gafà. Secondo un mandatum datato 14 settembre 1682 (48) l’architetto maltese, fratello del grande Melchiorre Gafà, disegnava la nuova cattedrale barocca quattordici anni prima del terremoto quando Gafà aveva anche presentato un bellissimo modello di legname e susseguentemente completato il nuovo coro barocco del edificio proposto. Questo coro era la sola parte del la vecchia cattedrale romanica che soppraviveva il terrimoto.

Dopo il ripreso dei lavori nel 21 maggio 1697, la parte medioevale della cattedrale gia ‘in parte collapsum’ venne demolita e la nuova cattedrale barocca del Gafa fu completata nel 1705, con una splendida facciata di due campanili e una cupola ornata barocca che trasformò il profilo medioevale di Mdina. In vista delle sue grandi dimensioni, ci si rese subito conto che lo spazio aperto anteriore fu inadeguato e necessitava un rifacimento. Il problema diventò più acuto nel 1713 quando un nuovo ‘zuntir’ ridusse ulteriormente lo spazio aperto .

La facciata laterale della cattedrale è controbilanciata dal lato opposto dal Seminario Vescovile del 1733 disegnato da un architetto sconosciuto. L’erezione del nuovo seminario fu suggerita dal fatto che il seminario era all’epoca una

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE ‘Casa d’Affitto’, che, nonostante la sua facciata esterna attraente, non offriva un’adeguata accomodazione, e fu costruita in malo modo, era umida e esposta alle correnti d’aria. Questa informazione è riportata in una lettera (49) depositata originariamente negli Archivi Segreti Arcivescovili, datata dicembre 1772. Nel 1728, comunque, un signore maltese offrì un sito alternativo vicino al Palazzo del vescovo e nel 1733 l’edificio del nuovo Seminario fu iniziato come parte della prima fase del sopradetto rifacimento dello spazio esteriore del cattedrale, tra le proteste di alcune persone che sostenevano che sarebbe stato meglio costruirlo alla Valletta – una proposta che eventualmente fu scartata per il fatto ‘molto conosciuto’ che ‘Valletta era la città esclusivamente riservata ai Cavalieri’. Adiacente al Seminario e contiguo alla Cattedrale dall’altra parte della piazza ci fu il Palazzo del vescovo costruito nel 1718-1719 dopo il rilascio del permesso necessario da Mondion il 26 ottobre 1717. L’architetto di questo edificio era Lorenzo Gafa e il primo vescovo che occupava il nuovo edificio era il spagnolo Iago Cannaves.

L’ultimo edificio importante nella piazza della cattedrale è il Palazzo Municipale noto anche come la ‘Casa della Città’ (1725-8). Nonostante l’evidenza precisa ricavata dai documenti, ci sono qua e là prove documentate che indicano che il disegnatore di questo edificio fu Mondion forse aiutato dall’architetto maltese Pietro Paolo Troisi ‘della Zecca’, vincitore nel 1705 di un primo premio all’accademia di San Luca a Roma dove studiava. La costruzione del nuovo Palazzo Municipale (1726-8) fu seguita dalla questione del chirografo magistrale del 1727 di Vilhena riguardante il ravvivamento di Mdina.

La pubblicazione di questo documento (50) diede avvio ad un’intensa attività di costruzione, che in modo fondamentale cambiò l’aspetto di Strada Villegaignon e di Strada San Paolo iniettando nell’ambiente costrutto un nuovo sapore barocco come richiedeva la nuova Cattedrale del Gafà. Il precedente fu stabilito nel seicento con l’erezione della Chiesa dei Carmelitani, in Strada Villegaignon costruita su pianta ovale secondo i disegni del maltese Francesco Sammut. Dopo il 1728, gran parte della

strada ne seguì le orme; tra i nuovi edifici i più importanti furono il Palazzo Municipale (1726), la piccola chiesa di San Rocco (1728) e la nuova Armeria (1734) eretta secondo i disegni di Petruzzo Debono – l’ormai famoso capomastro che sembra essere stato il responsabile di gran parte delle case private e governative di Mdina durante il principato di Vilhena. È interessante notare camminando per queste strade come i ‘nuovi’ edifici ben si fondano con gli edifici più vecchi di stile goticochiaramonte rappresentati nei Palazzi di Santa Sofia e di Falsone – un fenomeno che è arricchito dalla strettezza delle strade. La chiesa di San Rocco (1728), costruita per sostituire la chiesetta romanica di Santa Maria della Porta che fu demolita per far spazio alla ripianificazione della zona dell’entrata (51), riproduce molte caratteristiche stilistiche dei primi disegni di Mondion per il lato posteriore della porta principale di Mdina (1724). La storia (52) della vecchia chiesetta di Santa Maria della Porta è interessante – una volta nel 1540 serviva da scuola di negromanzia dove due preti sposati, un insegnante e uno straniero conosciuto come Gesualdo, predicarono parecchie dottrine eretiche per cui Gesualdo fu più tardi bruciato al rogo nella piazza pubblica di Vittoriosa. Dopo il terremoto del 1693, la chiesetta di Santa Maria della Porta servì pure come Cattedrale. Il terzo edificio barocco importante nella Strada Villegaignon era il Palazzo dell’Armeria. Secondo un Chirografo datato 25 settembre 1734, il disegno di questo edificio fu fatto dal capomastro Petruzzo Debono. L’isolato consistette di due piani con i negozi che davano alla Strada Villegaignon occupando il Piano Terra e con una grande sala per l’Armeria occupando il piano di sopra. I lavori nella zona della cattedrale ebbero termine nell’anno 1746 con il completamento del bastione dietro la Cattedrale. È stato già detto che l’11 novembre 1732, Mondion, dopo uno studio approfondito del sito, ebbe ordinato i restauri alle fortificazioni esistenti. Benché i lavori al nuovo bastione iniziassero nel 1739, sembra che fossero già programmati nel 1725 come si vede dal piano di Mdina del 1725. Si nota la forma raffinata del nuovo bastione quando lo si paragona ai bastioni anteriori, in modo particolare

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l’angolo ottuso saliente di 110 gradi e le svasature curate in dettaglio. L’angolo di circa 80 gradi del nuovo bastione con l’orizzontale è pure significativo se viene paragonato alla natura verticale dei settori medioevali delle fortificazioni.

Dopo la morte di Mondion nel 1733, il progetto per questo bastione fu raffinato dall’ingegnere Marandon che nel 1739 ordinò l’inizio dei lavori che furono di seguito completati nel 1746.

La zona della ‘Porta dei Greci’ A parte i disegni famosi di Perez d’Aleccio (54) non esiste evidenza della forma del settore a sud-ovest di Mdina prima della ripianificazione di Vilhena.

Ad ogni modo le modifiche del Mondion in questa zona compresero l’erezione di una nuova porta sul sito della vecchia ‘Porta dei Greci’, il restauro del muro portante circostante, le modifiche al bastione cinquecentesco di San Pietro e agli adiacenti mura, ed in fine, la costruzione di una serie di depositi situati accanto al muro portante ad occidente. Tutti questi lavori furono eseguiti tra il 1722 e il 1739. Di questi, la più importante per quel che riguarda il disegno è la nuova ‘Porta dei Greci’ costruita secondo un disegno ispirato dall’lavoro di Vauban presentato dal Mondion nel 1724. L’ordine inferiore della porta riproduce molti elementi, che si trovano nella porta principale – pilastri bugnati, modanatura agli archi, fregi ornamentali. La diversità principale sta nel trattamento del frontone che nella porta greca assume una forma triangolare. Architettonicamente, le proportioni dimensionali della seconda porta di Mdina rivelano un miglioramento di quelle della porta principale; infatti, questa porta è una delle migliori e delle meno cospicue manifestazioni architettoniche di Mondion a Malta, disegnata sotto l’influenza del suo tutor, il grande Vauban. Per quel che riguarda i disegni dei depositi da parte dell’ingegnere, si potrebbe dire che la forma a strisce come decoro adottata è nello stile dei depositi Calcara disegnati per la Floriana da Mondion nel 1726.

Come conclusione di questa relazione non sarebbe fuori luogo fare qualche riferimento ai risultati del programma edile di Vilhena a Mdina dopo il grande

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE terremoto del 1693. Si può dire che nonostante gli incentivi del Gran Maestro forniti nel chirografo magistrale il 22 gennaio 1727, Mdina dopo quella data ritenne molta della sua aura tradizionale, di una città silenziosa ed esiste documentazione dalle figure demografiche che anche con la ripianificazione di Vilhena non ci fu nessuna corsa per trovare nuovi alloggi dentro la nuova Mdina barocca. Pure dal punto di vista commerciale, la nuova città fallì nel generare quel commercio che si aspettava che facesse e, quel che fu peggio dal punto di vista dell’Ordine, fallì pure di sorgere come deposito conveniente dell’entroterra dove tutte le merci della campagna potevano essere raccolte per l’esportazione. Ma la nuova pianificazione e la costruzione servirono per uno scopo importante. Perché lo stile barocco dei nuovi palazzi e chiese, un vero ‘inno all’ occhio e alla teoria della visione’(55), stabilì l’influenza di un grande Gran Maestro del settecento in una città dove l’interferenza dei precedenti Gran Maestri fu disapprovata e risentita. Questo è il significato del contributo di Mondion a Mdina che potrebbe, in questo contesto, essere definito come un monumento della settecentesca propaganda magistrale seguendo la tradizione dell’architettura barocca francese di Luigi XIV con cui Mondion, un parigino, aveva molta conoscenza (56). Il terremoto del 1693 facilitò in modo conveniente questo esercizio politico.

Prof. Arch. Denis De Lucca is the Director of the International Institute for Baroque Studies at the University of Malta This paper was presented by Professor Denis De Lucca, at an international conference entitled Difese, Terremoti e Ricostruzioni in Eta Moderna organised by the Dipartimento di Storia e Progetto nell’architettura of the University of Palermo 11-13 October 2006.

References and Note 1. J.Shower, Practical Reflections on the late Earthquakes in Jamaica, England, Sicily, Malta, etc., Anno 1692 (Londra, 1693) 30.

2. B(iblioteca) N(azionale di) M(alta), Manoscritto XVIII, f.2

3. M. Ellul, The Earthquake of 1693 – A historical survey in Mdina and the Earthquake of 1693 (ed. Mons. Giovanni Azzopardi) (Malta, 1993) 27 4. BNM, Manoscritto 1146, f.359r 5. A. Bonnici, L’Isla, Vol.II (Malta, 1986) 158.

6. A(rchivio dell’) O(rdine di) M(alta) 263, f.138v.

7. AOM 263, ff.138v-139v 8. AOM 263, f.141v 9. AOM 1016, f.83 ; G.Darmanin Demajo, Le Albergie delle Lingue Iberiche e le Loro Chiese Nazionali in Archivio Storico di Malta, Anno III, Vol. III (Malta, 1932) 8788.

10. G. Darmanin Demajo, op.cit., 88 11. AOM 263, f. 138v 12. D. De Lucca, Carapecchia: Master of Baroque Architecture in early eighteenth century Malta (Malta, 1999) 134.

13. J. Shower, op.cit., 30.

14. G.P.F. Agius de Soldanis, Il Gozo Antico-Moderno e Sacro-Profano (Malta, 1746) 92v.

15. AOM 263, f. 143v.

16. AOM 263, f.145v.

17. Arcivio Provinciale dei Francescani Minori a Valletta, Libro Esito 1675-1715, f.106v.

18. AOM 263, f.138v.

19. Ibid.

20. AOM 263, f.139v.

21. AOM 263, ff.138v-139r.

22. AOM 263, f.143v.

23. A(rchivio del) C(attedrale di) M(alta), Misc. 62, Serie B, Tom.IV, citato da M. Ellul, op.cit., 41.

24. Ibid.

25. D. De Lucca, Mdina: A History of its Urban Space and Architecture (Malta, 1995).

26. AOM 1016, f.158v.; BNM, Univ.23, notizia datata febbraio 1693.

27. ACM, Manoscritto 176, f.884.

28. ACM, Acta Rev.mi Capituli, Vol.III, f.605.

29. AOM 265, f.26.

30. M. Ellul, op.cit., 42.

31. Archivio dei Padri Domenicani a Rabat, Manoscritto 516, Esito Straordinario 16811698, f.22.

32. Archivio della chiesa di San Paolo a Rabat, Manoscritto Fabrica di San Paolo 1693-1705, f.120v.

33. D. De Lucca, Mdina: A History of its Urban Space and Architecture (Malta, 1995) 89. Si puo anche consultare Medievale e Barocco a Mdina scritto dallo stesso autore in DEMETRA, numero 6 (Palermo, 1994) 8 e il libro Mondion: The achievement of a French military engineer working in Malta in the early eighteenth century (Malta, 2003) scritto dal professor De Lucca.

34. Ibid.

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35. BNM, Univ. 95 e 27. L’informazione interessantissimo trovato dall’autore negli anni 1974-1975 nelle diversi pagine di questo fonte, sono discussi in dettaglio nel citato volume su Mdina e anche nel suo contributo intitolato Architectural Interventions in Mdina following the earthquake of 1693 nel libro gia citato libretto Mdina and the Earthquake of 1693.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid.

40. Ibid.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. ACM, Manoscritto 60, f.6 45. BNM, Univ. 187, f.56 46. ACM, Manoscritto 60, fol.var.

47. ACM, Manoscritto 60, ff.23-24 48. ACM, Depositeria, Vol.II, f.363v 49. ACM, Manoscritto 21, f.135 50. BNM, Univ. 27, Reg.1726-1727, ff. 5860v.

51. ACM, Manoscritto 60, f.19.

52. ACM, Manoscritto 60, ff.22-23.

53. BNM, Univ. 187, f.139.

54. J.Quentin Hughes, Fortress: Architecture and Military History in Malta (Londra, 1969) 151-152 55. C. Rizza, Per una teoria del Barocco (Milano, 1985) 8.

56. In questo riguardo si puo consultare D. De Lucca, The Contribution of Francois de Mondion in the Architectural Development of 18th century Malta in Proceedings of History Week 1981 (Malta, 1981) e anche lo stesso autore, French Military Engineers in Malta during the 17th and 18th centuries in Melita Historica (Malta, 1980).

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE

DOCUMENTING FORTIFICATIONS AND MILITARY STRUCTURES THROUGH PHYSICAL SURVEYS AND ARCHIVAL RESEARCH

It is therefore extremely important when surveying pre-industrial and modern military landscapes for one to analyse thoroughly their spatial and temporal limits as many have been subjected to a gradual evolution and deformation, particularly in the last half of the twentieth century. A case in point, out of the many that exist is the subsequent changes that occurred on St. Christopher’s Bastion, Valletta, as clearly illustrated in Figs. 1 to4 overleaf.

by Mr. Paul C. Saliba

Cartographic and pictorial evidence

The aim of this paper is to provide information regarding the procedures for documenting structures and landscapes through physical surveys and archival research, with reference to some restoration and conservation projects, carried out by the Restoration Unit(Works Division, Malta) mainly on Maltese fortifications. It considers two important aspects, surveying (or landscape archaeology) and historical research and documentation. The compiled information is used to build a database designed to inform restoration interventions.

Spatial and temporal limits Although there is ample physical and documentary evidence relating to Maltese fortifications , particularly does dating from the Knights to the British Period, yet the urban development that has been taking place for the past fifty years has created a considerable distortion of the military landscape such that it is not always possible to understand the original relationship of military structures to their surrounding lanscape. If the people strolling across the Bus Terminus at Valletta were to be asked how the Bus Terminus looked 150 years ago, very few would answer that they are standing on the site that actually formed part of the outer works of Valletta land front fortifications and that most of the roads, tree and residential areas were once preceded by a barren earthen glacis.

The problem of delineating spatial and temporal limits can be minimized through familiarization with the full range of cartographic material and illustrations available for the area under study and the literature that supports it.

After the arrival of the Knights of St John in Malta in 1530, the islands also shared in the benefit of map production, especially after the Great siege of 1565, when they gained popularity amongst the great powers in Europe and beyond.

Apart from the large range of maps, engravings, paintings and other pictorial material dating to the time of the Order, the Knights have also left a rich collection of documents which are now housed in the National Library and other archival depositaries. The cabrei which contain hand-painted maps and plans depicting the property of the Order are of great use to the study of local landscapes. However, early maps and engravings should be checked for their reliability as in certain instances artists used to depict biased versions of events. In some instances the overall configuration of the topography was distorted, especially when artists copied maps and scenery from earlier prints instead of drawing on the spot. Often a degree of artistic licence and imagination was involved.

Map production depicting local topography continued to increase in quantity and quality during the British Period, especially since the late nineteenth century with the issue of the ordinance survey maps.

Photogrammetric mapping, air-photo interpretation and surveys using total station equipment added precision to these maps.

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The type of significant changes that can occur in the local landscape were encountered during in the rehabilitation of Pembroke Battery, a nineteenth century coastal work of fortification.

The survey sheets were instrumental in revealing the many rapid changes to landscape in question before and well after the battery was built, when it was almost totally obliterated after the site was incorporated within a housing scheme in the 1980s ( see page 36).

The first set of survey sheets for the Island of Malta was published in several batches between 1898 and 1924.

Only land surveying methods were used for the collection of the data and the sheets did not include any contours.

The set comprises 149 sheets. The first set of Gozo is undated and does not include contours and is presumed to be not later than 1940. The second set of Malta is the six-inch-to-one-mile set of ten survey sheets dated 1911 to 1940. It does not include contour lines. The third set of Malta also consists of 149 survey sheets and was compiled by the Office of the Public Works, Malta and reproduced by the War Office during the first decades of the twentieth century. It was revised, contoured and redrawn through the use of air photographs and published in 1958. All later sets include contour lines except the 1996 set for both the Islands of Malta and Gozo having a scale of 1:10,000. The second set for Gozo was printed by the Ordnance Survey for the Government of Malta in 1965. It consists of 42 sheets. The fourth and fifth sets for Malta only and for both Malta and Gozo were published in 1973 and 1989 respectively. All sets include a very rich toponomy.

The importance of chronology An issue on which all historians agree is the importance of chronology. The order or sequence of events with respect to the temporal scales is crucial in the reconstruction of fortifications.

Structures have to be thoroughly investigated so that any extensions, accretions, changes, and developments could be identified and put in sequential order. The upgrading of the Biagio Steps Examination Centre which forms part of St. Andrews Bastion was a

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE difficult exercise in this aspect as evidenced from Fig. 14.

Tapping the sources Reference to all documentation that exists about the sites under study including contemporary literature is also very important. Written sources are often the best type of evidence for the supply of secure dates of events.

Documentary evidence can confirm or contradict any results obtained when analysing past landscapes. However, early documentation and modern literature should always be taken into account with an open eye for any imperfect information either purposely given to distort the true course of events or through simple human error.

Often expert advice proves indispensable when analysing fortifications and the surrounding landscapes. During the restoration of St. Helen’s Gate (Sta. Margherita Lines, Bormla), for example, it was suspected by the Superintendent of Fortifications the gate harboured a buried internal drop-pit which was used to house the inner part o fthe tavolatura (wooden platform) of a ‘a la Vauban’ type of counterweighted drawbridge. Such devices were introduced in Maltese fortifications by the French military engineer Charles Francois de Mondion in the early decades of the eighteenth century. Although no specific record of such a device existed for this particular gate, the fact it was design (but not completed) by Mondion raised the possibility of the existence of such a ‘cantina di ponte levatoio’. The only way to find out was through physical surveys and archaeological excavation.

Chronological development and evolution of St. Christopher Bastion, Valletta, showing the various stages from its conception as a proposal in Laparelli's original design to its present day mutilation and configuration with a modern road cutting right through the face of the rampart. Grunenburg's fleaur d'eaux battery has also largely disappeared.

(Illustrations by P. Saliba)

The initial task was to identify an appropriate area within the gate, measuring about one metre by two metres, which was to serve as a sondage to check what really existed underneath the surface. In the meantime all the required permits were issued before the excavation started.

It was taken under consideration that if a drop-pit really existed, the two sidewalls of the vaulted gateway could be followed straight down into the pit.

Therefore, it was decided that the trial

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pit would be positioned along the eastern wall of the gateway and extended by half the width of the tunnel, so that pedestrians could use the other half. Once the four walls of the drop-pit were detected, the excavation could be easily carried out.

The material could then be removed using hand tools only in spit levels ranging from about 0.5 metres to 0.75 metres.

The upper surface consisted of a thick layer of concrete covered with tarmac that varied from 180mm to 320mm and sometimes even thicker . When the concrete surface was eventually removed, a compact fill consisting of a mixture of stones of varying sizes, gravel and debris was uncovered. The pit was cleared from the material up to a depth of one metre using hand tools only. However, the pit was not adequate and deep enough to enable one to check whether the eastern wall was made up of ashlar fair-faced blocks below ground level. Blocks with a rough surface would indicate a foundation wall, and if so, one had to eliminate the existence of a drop-pit.

Nevertheless, the wall seemed to be highly disturbed, probably due to the construction of the present concrete floor. Moreover, a number of services (water pipelines and electricity cables) were found within this level running close to the wall, along the north-south direction. The trial pit was further extended all through the tunnel for a further length of about four metres. The same type of rubble was found all along within the trench. Attention was given so that the cables and pipes would remain covered with earth until they were checked and declared safe by the responsible personnel. At this stage there was no indication of a drop-pit.

The laying of the pipelines and cables had disturbed all the area with the consequence that, also in the presence of a drop-pit, the upper part of the chamber would definitely be obliterated.

The eastern wall of the tunnel, whether it formed part of the foundation or the internal wall of the chamber, was defaced since a stone channel was dug into it to serve as a bed for the water pipeline.

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE Excavation work immediately started on the opposite side, and a trench about the length of six metres by about one and a half metres (half the width of the tunnel), was dug down to a depth of about one metre. The same negative results, as in the case of the opposite side, were reached. A number of cables and pipelines were found running close to the tunnel wall with the result that a large amount of disturbance was caused to the said wall.

The northern and southern wall of the excavation trench consisted of a mass of concrete and stones, which were caused by the laying of the pipelines and cables. The trench now consisted of an approximate area of 6.4 metres by 2.8 metres and about 1.6 metres deep.

The results were absolutely negative.

The western and eastern walls of the tunnel were highly disturbed and were not fair-faced as one expected them to be so as to serve as indicators for the existence of the drop-pit. There was no sign of any walls either in the southern or northern part of the trench.

On the insistence of the Superintendent of Fortifications excavation work was resumed in the pit and carried out along half the width of the tunnel for a further depth of one metre. The fill consisted of rubble and debris belonging to relative recent times. At this level the western wall was set slightly backwards and the blocks appeared to be ashlar and fair-faced, signifying that they did not form part of a foundation but of the internal wall of an underground chamber. This find encouraged further digging along this length of the wall and a continuous course of ashlar blocks about 42cm high was uncovered. Also most of the blocks had masons’ marks incised on their fair-faced surface, thereby implying that some type of construction was present below ground level pertaining to the period of the knights’, owing to the fact that similar types of these particular marks are only recorded on many Hospitaller buildings.

However, the southern and northern walls were discovered at a depth of 2.8 metres below ground level, underlying a thick mixture of concrete and rubble.

Now with all four walls of the drop-pit traced, the excavation process was much easier.Three main types of masons’ marks were found. These have the following shapes: X, D, V. Out of a total of 241 blocks of stone, 213 have masons’ marks were recorded.

The unearthed drop-pit at St Helen’s Gate proved to be very similar to the other known drop-pits at Mdina, Birgu, Porte des Bombes and Fort Manoel (the later still to be excavated but fully documented), confirming that this gateway too was designed by the French resident engineer Charles Francis de Mondion to take an ‘a la Vauban’ type of drawbridge. The excavation, however, could not confirm, however, whether the drawbridge itself was actually fitted, or whether it was fitted and removed, as is known to have happed in some other gates, largely because the ‘a la Vauban’ drawbridge proved to be highly unpopular and unreliable, if not outright dangerous to pedestrians. The gate was eventually, and unceremoniously, adapted to take a chain-and-tackle type of drawbridge mechanism, the slits for which were crudely cut into the decorative features o fthe façade. This has often been taken to have occurred during the early British period but may well date to the late Hospitaller period.

Direct dialogue with local residents, especially old folk and owners of sites or buildings under study is often very rewarding as it may reveal unrecorded

The western and eastern walls of what now appeared to constitute an underground chamber appeared immediately below the disturbance caused by the laying of the services.

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Top right, Graphic reconstruction of 'a la Vauban' drawbridge mechanism as would have been designed for, and probably installed at, St. Helen's Gate, Bormla.

Below, Elevation sketch recording mason's marks on wall of 'cantina' or internal drawbridge pit and, right , detail of mason's narks on blocks.

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE information. Such people can sometimes prove to be well acquainted with the structure of their land/building and its past history. This type of evidence, however, has to treated with great caution as it often can be based on imperfect information, or un or hearsay.

Also, the continuous familiarisation with the site or building concerned through physical surveys and observation is highly essential as the historian/surveyor has to acquire a feel for the site/building. Here experience and an observant eye are an invaluable asset. The continuous surveys carried out by the project team at the medieval site of Is-Simblija in the limits of Rabat/ Dingli, for example, helped establish that an number of walls within the valley of Wied Hazrun were actually British ridge defences and not ordinary field rubble walls, dating back to the late nineteenth/early twentieth. Their method of construction is similar to other contemporary ridge defences built with semi-regular blocks laid in linear courses and having their frontal side built with a talus.

It is important that all data collected throughout a research exercise should eventually be brought together and compiled into a report. Once this occurs, restoration experts can analyse the information and draw up a map of the anatomy of the structure and its various stages of development.

Inconclusive evidence or contradictory results indicate the need for further research.

Mr. Saliba is a qualified Archaeolgist working in the Restoration Unit, Works Division, Floriana, Malta. He is currently reading for his MA in Landscape Archaeology.

Survey sheet Nos. 42 and 43 dated 1901 and 1897 respectively showing Pembroke Rifle Ranges, Fort Pembroke, St. Andrew's Barracks and St. George’s Barracks. The terrain is still made up of garigue and partly exposed rock. The second map shows detail from Survey sheet No. 5276 showing the inclusion of Pembroke Battery. The survey sheet published for the Maltese Government by the British Government’s Overseas Development is dated August 1968 when the site was no longer used for military purposesig. The bottom map shows Pembroke Building Development Area superimposed on survey sheet 5276.

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Detail of gateway of St Anthony Battery, Ras il-Qala, Gozo. This arched entrance way with its escutcheons and inscribed dated (1732) fell a few years ago and is currently in the process of being reconstructed by Din lArt Helwa and the Qala Local Council.

Photographic documentation will enable restorers to identify and recuperate some of the original masonry and reconstruct missing elements.

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THE CASTLES AND FORTRESSES OF RHODES by Dr Stephen C Spiteri

In all the theatres of war in which the Order established its convent, the Hospitallers followed an unremitting aggressive policy of offensive actions.

This continual belligerency roused heavy retaliation from their Muslim enemies and the Hospitallers’ survival throughout nearly six hundred years of warfare was as much a result of their daring, bravery, and fighting prowess as it was due to their unceasing efforts in strengthening and building fortifications. Their ability to survive on the border outposts of Christendom in the face of ever-growing Muslim power was largely possible because of the possession of formidable fortresses.

knights’ ability to acquire a base for their operations. They found it in the island of Rhodes and took it by force of arms .

The opportunity presented itself in 1306. Rhodes and the other islands of the archipelago were then part of schismatic Byzantium and papal approval for the project was not difficult to obtain. Furthermore, the Byzantine Governor of Rhodes had cast off his allegiance from Constantinople such that the island was effectively ruled as an independent state (1). Still, the Order was careful not depict the attack on Rhodes as a crusade against the Greek Byzantine empire (the Latin kingdom of Constantinople had collapsed in 1261) and, early in 1307, the Hospitallers had even sent an embassy to Andronisus II offering to hold the island as his subjects (2). The attack on Rhodes was envisaged as a preliminary step in the reconquest of the holy places. The island was nevertheless a Christian country of Orthodox Greeks but the

Fortified strongholds, therefore, were an indispensable tool of the Hospitallers’ crusading métier. Their strongholds functioned both as frontier marches guarding against Muslim incursions into Christian territory and as military bases spearheading raiding expeditions into enemy lands.

One of the most significant factors that was to influence the nature of the Order’s fighting tradition was its transformation into a naval force after the loss of Acre in 1291, effectively the last Christian outpost in the Latin East.

After 1291, the Hospitaller knights had no other option but to trade their chargers for galleys in order to retain their crusading métier, going on to fight most of their battles at sea, preying on Turkish shipping. What made this transformation possible was the 39 / ISSUE 5/ 2008

The citadel of the fortress of Marqab, one of the principal Hospitaller strongholds in Syria during the 13th century.

pretext was good enough to justify a scheme which sought to take advantage of the Greeks’ inability to withstand Turkish pressure.

The city of Rhodes, well fortified and amply garrisoned, however, did not fall easily into their hands. The long and unexpected resistance put up by the Rhodiots placed a great strain on the Order’s resources so that the knights were reduced to mortgaging their revenues to a Florentine money-lender by the name of Peruzzi. Two decades later, the Hospitallers were still paying off their debts (3). In the end, the fortress fell to the Hospitallers not through military operations but through a stroke of luck. A relief force sent by the Byzantine emperor was carried off by a storm to Famagusta in Cyprus and the captain of the ship was forced by the Hospitallers to talk the Rhodian populace into surrender (4). With their reinforcements gone and with adequate

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terms presented to them, the Rhodian garrison had no other option but to surrender and on 15 August 1309, the gates of the city were thrown open to the Hospitallers (5).

With the occupation of Rhodes, the Hospitallers did not only acquire a new base from where to organize their military activities but also a little island kingdom. For with Rhodes came the rulership of the surrounding islands of Nisyros, Symi, Halki, Alimonia, Telos, Kalymnos, and Leros. In 1313 the Order also took possession of the islands of Karpathos and Kassos, disturbing the rule of Andrea Cornaro who induced Venice to intervene.

Not long after the transfer of the Order’s convent from Cyprus to Rhodes, the Hospitallers were soon attracting Turkish attention and Osman, one of the Muslim princes on the Turkish mainland, unsuccessfully attacked their island base in 1310. The Hospitallers, however, were quick to assert their naval control over the Aegean and, by 1320, they had won two important victories over the neighbouring Turkish emirates. They even secured and

temporarily held a small number of castles on the Anatolian mainland itself and for the next century Rhodes was able to prosper in relative peace. Before 1306, Turkish razzias and slave-raiding had severely reduced the population of the Dodecanese islands. In Rhodes, an island 80 km long and 38 km wide, the number of inhabitants had dropped to well below 10,000 and much of the fertile lands had fallen out of cultivation.

The Hospitallers’ first task once they had taken control of the islands was to repopulate them with Latin settlers and develop their commerce and agriculture so that men and supplies would be available for the defence of Rhodes.

Farms, mills, and agricultural estates were leased out in emphyteusis or in

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perpetuity.6 In 1316 the fertile volcanic island of Nisyros was granted as a fief to the Assanti family of Ischia, for which they owed the service of a galley (an obligation which was later commuted for an annual sum of 200 florins in 1347) and in 1366, the islands of Kos and Telos were granted to Borrello Assanti, burgensis of Rhodes, on condition that he was to erect a watch-tower on the little island of Alimonia, near Halki. Nevertheless, the number of men who actually settled down permanently on Rhodes, especially fighting men, remained small.

In 1313 the Order offered land and pensions to any westerners who would settle as soldiers or sailors in Rhodes.

The statutes of 1311 and 1314 projected a force of 500 cavalry and 1,000 foot soldiers to serve as a permanent garrison in Rhodes while the number of brethren in the East stood between 200 and 350. The Greek inhabitants were also involved in the defence of the islands and had to perform servitude in the building of fortifications. On Kos, for example, the inhabitants were forced to fortify the suburbium in 1381.(7) Each district, or castellania, had a castle under the command of a Hospitaller captain to which the rural population could retreat in times of danger, though most of the fortifications scattered around Rhodes and the neighbouring islands, with the exception of a few like Lindos, Pheraclos, Horio (Kalymnos), and Platanos (Leros) were neither powerfully built nor large enough to withstand determined attacks. Indeed, in times of crisis, many of these castles were actually abandoned and the inhabitants shipped off to the safety of Rhodes or the nearest impregnable

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE fortress such as happened in 1470 and 1475, when the population of the islands of Telos and Halki were evacuated to Rhodes.

To ensure that Rhodes was governed effectively, it was divided into a number of castellanies. The Castellania of the city of Rhodes included the strongholds and villages at Trianda, Psinthos, and Philerimos; the towers of St Etienne, Faliraki, Afandou, and Massari; the hamlets of Marista, Salia, Katangaro, Ermia, Eleoussa, Arhipolis, Platania, Malona, and Kamiro; and the fortified monasteries of Aghios Ilias and Tsambika. The castles and villages of Koskinou, Archangelos, and Kremasti were autonomous and had to arrange for their own defence. In 1479 the castellany of Pheraclos was set up and it came to include properties which were formerly part of the castellany of Rhodes; the castles and villages of Pheraclos and, Archangelos, and some hamlets. The castellany of Lindos consisted of the castle and burgus of Lindos, the castles and villages of Asklipion and Lardos, the towers of Pefka, Aghios Yorghios and Gennadion, and the hamlets of Pilona and Kalathos.

In 1475 it was decreed that ‘al Castello di Lindo ridurre si dovessero i Casali di Calatto, di Pilona, di Lardo, di Steplio (Asklipion) e di Ianadi (Gennadion).’ Askiplion was detached from the castellany of Lindos in 1479 and, together with the castle and village of Vathy, formed into a separate administrative unit. The castellan of Lahania was responsible for the village and castle of Lahania, the towers at Aghia Marina, Cap Lahania, and Cap Vaglia together with the hamlets of Tararo, Tha, Defania, and Efgales. The castellany of Kattavia consisted of the village and stronghold of Kattavia and the hamlet of Messangros. The castellan of Apolakkia governed the

castle of Apolakkia and its village together with the other hamlets of Arnitha, Profilia, and Istrios. In 1479 this district was amalgamated with that of Monolithos (8).

The castellany of Sianna consisted of the castles and villages of Sianna, Telemonias, and originally, even Monolithos and the towers of Glifada, Amartos, and Cape Armenistis.27 In all, there appear to have been 20 castles on Rhodes. Of these, however, the ones at Lachania, Laerma, Psinthos, Apollona, Salakos, and Trianda have disappeared with time and only a few scanty remains

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survive of others, such as Kattavia, Apollakia, and Sianna (9).

The island of Kos, the largest of the archipelago after Rhodes, was also divided into a number of districts: Narangia, Pyli, Kefalos, and Andimacchia. Kefalos castle could only provide refuge against minor raids and its inhabitants had to retreat to the safety of Narangia in 1504 (10).

At the time that the Order invaded Rhodes, the Hospitallers regarded the island as a base from where military Below, The ruins of the castle of Pheraclos, on the eastern coast of Rhodes.

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operations could be launched for the recovery of the Holy Land. However, growing Turkish power led instead to a policy of resistance and to the defence of the Latin possessions in the eastern Mediterranean.

As the Ottomans advanced farther into the Balkans, the Order became increasingly involved in the defence of Greece and after 1356 there were even proposals which favoured establishing the Hospital on the mainland.

By 1402, the Hospitallers had realistically decided that large-scale operations in Greece were beyond their resources and instead decided to concentrate their efforts at Smyrna, but the city did not last for long and in July of that same year it was destroyed and dismantled by the Mongol ruler, Timur.

After the initial Turkish counter-attacks of 1310-12 and 1318-19, Rhodes enjoyed periods of comparative peace and there was no major assault on the island until

Plan of the fortified city of Rhodes (after Gabriel) and view of its 14th and early 15th century system of double walls along its landfront.

the unsuccessful Egyptian Mameluke campaigns of 1440 and 1444. The Mamelukes had already invaded Cyprus in 1428 and, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to Sultan Mehmed II, Rhodes became the easternmost Christian outpost in the heart of an ever-growing Turkish empire. Thereafter, the retention of the Order’s position in the Aegean depended on the capacity of Rhodes to resist major assaults and the knigts spent the rest of their stay on the island investing heavily in the fortification of the island and its dependencies.

number of secondary strongholds scattered around the outlying districts and islands. Most served primarily as administrative centres or as a shelter for the population in rural areas (11). The majority of these strongholds were predominantly Byzantine origin relying without exception, on the strength of naturally defensible sites for their protection.

The Hospitaller’s organization of their defences centred around the fortified city of Rhodes. This mother fortress was the largest and most heavily fortified Hospitaller entity serving both as the political and military seat of the Convent, a base for their military and naval forces and it was here that the knights invested most of their efforts.

This fortress fed and controlled a

Gabriel rightly remarked that the Hospitaller fortifications in Rhodes show nothing of the essential features of the Order’s earlier strongholds in Syria. Indeed, the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century fortifications in the Dodecanese reflect a predominantly Byzantine influence. This is attributed partly to the fact that many of the fortifications in the Greek islands were

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ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE of Byzantine origin and partly because the Hospitallers, after 1310, continued to utilize indigenous labour functioning in Byzantine tradition. Nearly all of the fortifications, particularly those in the lesser islands, are undoubtedly of Byzantine construction with minimal Hospitaller additions. A few of the strongholds, particularly those built anew by the knights, however, such as those of Apolakkia, Sianna, and Lardos, reflect other influences as well. The castle of Apolakkia, for instance, of which only a few sparse remains survive today, consisted of a central tower or keep surrounded by an outer enceinte similar to the donjon-and-bailey type of earlier Frankish strongholds in Syria.4 The donjon, or strong tower, also formed the backbone of other castles, such as those found at Lardos and Sianna. However, given that many of the strongholds on Rhodes have not survived, it is difficult to draw any conclusions from so few examples. The earliest castle erected by the Hospitallers on Rhodes, that of Villanouva (1319-46), has unfortunately not survived to shed light on early architectural preferences of the Order, although it is known that this castle, too, had a large rectangular plan.

In Rhodes, the Hospitallers established a base which remained in the forefront of the struggle against the Turks, but after the initial assaults of the second decade of the fourteenth century, they were relatively untroubled by any

serious threat given that the Turks did not as yet possess a sufficiently strong naval force to mount an invasion of the island. Consequently, there appeared no serious military threat to the Rhodian fortress during the first half of the fourteenth century and the Hospitaller seem to have been content with simply repairing the city’s Byzantine fortifications. Some building activity did take place during the magistracies of Villeneuve (1319-46) and De Gozon (1346-53), but most of this initial effort was directed towards the extension of the city’s enceinte in both a southern and eastern direction in order to absorb the suburbs that had grown outside the city walls (12).

The Byzantine city of Rhodes which the knights took over in 1309 occupied only a section of the ancient Hellenic city and was built on a level site where the only advantage lay in its harbours which were now vital for the Order’s new naval role. The level site meant that the city’s defences had to depend totally on the strength of man-made fortifications. The earliest defences built by the knights employed a system of double walls running parallel to each other, with the inner wall being higher then the outer one and stiffened at regular intervals with wall-towers.

These served to provide enfilading fire along the adjoining curtain walls and to isolate whole sections of the ramparts from the rest of the enceinte.

This system of concentric defences was similar in concept to the walls of Constantinople but had only two lines of ramparts. The inner wall, the teichos (teicos), of about two metres thickness, was stiffened at regular intervals with rectangular wall-towers (13). In front of this, but at a lower level, stood the the proteichisma (proteicisma) or faussebraye, with its own walkway.

Development of the Bastion of Auvergne.

Percopius had laid down that the space between the two walls had to be one quarter of the height of the inner wall.

This is roughly the case at Rhodes too.

A good example of this early type of Rhodian system of defence has survived in the stretch of city walls east of St Athanassios gate. Only at the castle of Narangia in Kos and at Bodrum is there any evidence that the knights employed this system of double walls elsewhere besides the city of Rhodes.

The earliest type of wall-towers built on the enceinte of the city of Rhodes were squarish ones. Apart from the remains of the square towers to be found on the walls of the collachium which, however, are actually Byzantine in origin, the oldest surviving towers actually built by the knights date to the period 137796. These are the two towers sited on

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ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARY ARCHITECTURE with short turrets or echaugettes (garitas) at the corners in the manner of Spanish and Portuguese menagem.

Framed escutcheons bearing the arms of Grand Master D'Amboise, 1512, D'Amboise gate, Rhodes city.

the north seaward side of the city along the trace between the towers of St Peter and St Paul. These are rectangular structures and bear the coat-of-arms of Grand Master Heredia. These are quite archaic in appearance and are armed only with cruciform arrow-slits.

Rounded towers appeared relatively late in Rhodian fortifications and not until the first half of the fifteenth century when they coincide with the appearance of gunpowder-operated weapons. By this date, the design of Rhodian fortifications was being heavily influenced by Iberian ideas. Thus, walltowers were built in the Portuguese albarra style, i.e. detached from the main walls to facilitate their isolation in case these fell to the enemy. The major towers, such as the Tower of Naillac and the French Tower at Bodrum, were built tall and slender, and were provided

Circular towers can be found interspersed with rectangular ones on the walls of the pre-Hospitaller fortress of Philerimos, but apparently even these were added later by the knights. At Pheraclos, another important preHospitaller stronghold, there are no circular wall-towers except those added at a later date by Grand Master Orsini.

In fact here, as in the majority of the rest of the strongholds found throughout the Order’s possessions in the region which relied on natural elevated sites for their defence, the trace of walls follows a tortuous course, changing direction in accordance with the configuration of the outer edge of the summit of the rocky outcrops.

Enfilading fire in such places was not provided by means of wall-towers but from jogs in the indented trace. The castle of Narangia in the island of Kos is the only one which reflects Venetian influence in its rectangular castrum plan with circular corner wall-towers. The Venetians seem to have been responsible for erecting the inner castrum, since the island is known to have been in their hands at an earlier date. Indeed, this type of castle can be seen on many other Greek islands which were once Venetian outposts, such as at Kelefa in the Poleponnese, Aptera, and Francokastello in Crete.

The introduction of gunpowderoperated cannon in the late fourteenth century led towards a gradual technological revolution in the art of poliorcetics and did much to assure that castles design did not ossify. The medieval castle, however, did not disappear over-night in the face of this

RESOURCES ON THE WEB FORTRESSES OF THE KNIGHTS Photographs of Hospitaller Fortifications in Rhodes and the Dodecanese islands. http://members.tripod.com/romeartlover/ Rodi2.html <CLICK PHOTO TO ACCESS WEBSITE

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new siege weapon, mainly because of the vast investment in existing castles and, therefore, the first reactions were minor practical alterations to the castles themselves. High walls, once proof against scaling and direct assault, became exposed targets and were either thickened or backed up with terrepleins to withstand the impact of shot; exposed walls were sometimes covered with earth or timber to absorb the shock of impact while fragile structures, such as machicolations and combustible wooden brattices, were removed from battlements. The defence of castles, however, remained a predominantly vertical one. The greatest importance of Hospitaller fortifications during the Rhodian period is that these illustrate the important transition from medieval defences to gunpowder fortifications and ultimately to the development of the bastioned trace in its embryonic form.

The gradual development of firearms in the later middle ages is first reflected in the provision of gun-loops and gunports to accommodate the new weapons to the advantage of the defenders. To mount cannon, castle walls required stable platforms and the most adaptable feature in castle design suited for this purpose was the wall-tower. Logically, cannon were placed on top of walltowers and effectively, these became gun-platforms. At the Tower of St George we find one of the first provisions for defence with guns in Rhodes. This appears to date to the period 1421-37, a comparatively late appearance that is somewhat surprising since gun-ports had been in use, even in England, as early as 1380.

The period from 1454 to 1467 saw the Hospitallers add various large but low polygonal towers liberally supplied with gun-ports along the faussebraye of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s land front defences. The addition of these works performed a function not unlike the medieval barbican although here these served not only to cover gateways and entrances but also enabled enfilading fire to be directed along the faces of the adjoining curtain walls. In effect, these projections of the faussebraye were actually bulwarks built specifically for use with cannon.

Such bulwarks, as are still to be seen

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Top right, Graphic reconstruction of Fort St Nicholas, c. 1522 and top right, during the siege of 1481 (after Caoursin). Right, Hospitaller knights c. 1500.

behind the Koskinou Gate and in front of the Tower of St George, were already approaching the solution of the bastion - only their solidity and dimensions were different.

Following the siege of 1480, D’Aubusson began to reconstruct and strengthen the city’s defences along quite different lines than those that had been employed till then. Evidently drawing on the lessons learnt from the siege, in which the city had experienced for the first time Turkish siege artillery fire, massive and solid polygonal bulwarks, or boulevards as these were called, were projected ahead of the earlier defences to shield them from cannon fire. These boulevards, together with the large tenailles cut out in front of the long curtain walls, were all built to different shapes. One can therefore regard them as being virtually experimental works, or better still, attempts to find the optimal method of defence along different sections of the terrain. A tendency towards regularity in the design of these massive structures began to manifest itself in the boulevard of Spain (1489) and then the boulevard of Auvergne which dates to 1496. The latter was the largest and most impressive of these works, pentagonal in plan in the manner of later Italian bastions and with a bomb-proof casemated battery in its flank. Actually the boulevard of Auvergne has long

been disputed as being the prototype of the first true bastion developed by the Italian military engineers. It was definitely a step in the right direction but, for reasons which will be discussed later, it was not actually conceived as a true pentagonal bastion (14).

So much so that the Hospitallers abandoned the development of pentagonal bastions in the following decades in favour of semicircular ones.

A number of these were built during the magistracy of Del Carretto, the most striking example being the bulwark at the post of Italy, but other examples can be found at the castle of Andimacchia in Kos, at Symi (but on a much smaller scale) and at Narangia, also in Kos, where the structure was actually incorporated into the main enceinte and thus can actually be called a bastion.

Only on the island of Leros does the polygonal form re-appear, where one of three bastions with a sloping base has survived on the Hospitaller-added enceinte, though it is difficult to date this work.

ingeniere e architecto, Bartholino de Castellione’ is reported as being in the service of the Hospitallers (16).

Bartholino appears to have been in the Order’s employ for a number of years (‘e stato stipendiato ali servitij nostri’) and was employed also at Kos and at ‘castello sancti petri quanto altre nostre isole’ (17). Apparently, he was still in the employ of the Order at Bodrum in 1507 (18).

The transformation from medieval castle to the bastioned fortress is attributed as a development which first took place in Italy in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries but it is evident that at Rhodes important developments were taking place on parallel lines throughout the same period (15). Indeed, Italian engineers were operating in Rhodes throughout this period. The first documented reference to an Italian military engineer working in Rhodes dates to 1502, when the ‘Cremonese

Pietro Spagnesi, in his book on Castel Sant’Angelo, mentions the Hospitaller knight Frà Antontio di S. Martino as one of the persons employed by Pope Alexander VI to ‘sovrintendere alla fabbrica’ of the Roman stronghold. The great similarity between the bulwarks erected by D’Aubusson at Rhodes and those built by the pope at Castel Sant’Angelo tends to indicate a common author, though historians have yet to determine which influenced which.

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The first mention of a military engineer in the employ of the Order is given by Giacomo Bosio. This was the German Georg Frappan, ‘Mastrogiorgios’, who was finally hanged by the knights for traitorously assisting the Turks during the siege of 1480, after he had actually defected from the Turkish army to join the knights (19). Prior to 1480, however, there is no information on the military engineers working for the Order. The post of ‘Provediteur des Fortifications’, which was held by Pierre d’Aubusson before his election to grand master in 1476, during which time he was responsible for strengthening the city’s seaward defences, however, seems to have been only a temporary one resulting from the fact that D’Aubusson was especially well versed in military engineering (20).

During the last two decades of the Order’s stay in Rhodes, the Hospitallers made increasing use of the services of Italian engineers, a practice they were to retain in Malta throughout the rest of the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries. Both Grand Masters Del Caretto and L’Isle Adam employed mostly Italian engineers like Basilio della Scuola and the Sicilian Maestro Zuenio (Geoini), the Bergamese Gabriele Tardini da Martengo, and the Florentine Gerolamo Bartolucci (21).

During this period, one can also begin to encounter the two categories of engineers employed by the Order, a practice that is well documented in Malta; that is, the distinction between a resident engineer, the ‘Ingeniere della Religione’, who was employed by the Hospitallers and was responsible for executing and maintaining all works of fortification like Maestro Zuenio, and the foreign expert loaned by some European monarch to design specific projects, such as ‘Basilio della Scuola, Ingegniero dell’Imperatore Massimiano; il quale era il maggiore huomo di quella professione ch’in quei tempi vivesse’(22). Gabriel refers also to a request by the Hospitallers, in 1516, for the services of the military engineer Scarpagnino which request, however, was turned down by the Venetian Republic. The relief model in wax of the fortified city of Rhodes which ‘Maestro Zuenio’ prepared for Pope Leo X in 1521

must have shown the latest improvements in the art of fortification the semicircular and polygonal bulwarks, the use of caponiers and curved parapets and gun embrasures.

The fortifications were soon put to the test in the course of the following year.

In effect, the siege of 1522 proved to be a complete departure from contemporary medieval siege warfare and was instead fought out with powerful artillery and explosive subterranean mines. The fact that 6,000 men were able to resist a large Turkish army for six months says much about the effectiveness of the early bulwarks of Rhodes. Had the knights received substantial reinforcements from Europe they would probably not have had to surrender the city.

References and Notes 1. J.C. Poutiers, Rhodes et ses chevaliers 1306-1523 (n.p. 1984) 23-8.

2. E. Zachariadou, Trade and Crusade: Venetian Crete and the Emirates of Menteshe and Aydin: 1300 -1415 (Venice, 1983).

3. E. Brockman, The Two Siege of Rhodes (London, 1969) 30.

4. E. Edwards,’The Knights Hospitalliers and the Conquest of Rhodes’, The Proceedings of the Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow (1918-20) 50-63.

5. A. Luttrell, ‘Hospitallers in Cyprus’, in The Hospitallers of Rhodes and their Mediterranean Worlds (London, 1992),162.

6 A. Luttrell, ‘The Hospitallers of Rhodes confront the Turks’ in The Hospitallers of Rhodes and their Mediterranean Worlds (London, 1992), 273-81.

7 . Luttrell, ‘Military & Naval Organization at Rhodes:1310-1444’ in The Hospitallers of Rhodes and their Mediterranean Worlds (London, 1992), 137.

8. Bosio, II, 256, 260, 261, 274, 321, 326, 350, 367, 396, 398, 561, 587-9; Poutiers, 190-6; Bosio, II, 349-50, gives the villages assigned to the various castles in 1475; Lindos, Calatto, Pilona, Lardo, Stlepio,

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The Bastion of Italy, Rhodes city. Right artistic reconstruction of the fortifications of Rhodes under assault during the siege of 1522. (by Stephen C. Spiteri), Ianadi; Canea (Lahania), Tha, Defania, Efgales; Catavia, Messiuagro, Vati; Polochia, Stridio, Porfilia, Arnita; Polona, Laderma; Salaco, Capi, Quittalia; Fanes, Diosoro,Nicorio, Dimilia; Villanouva, Chimedes, Altoluogo, Dimitria, Sicegai; Feraclo-Salia, Ianadoto, Malona, Catagro, Camimari; Arcangelo, solo guardare si dovesse. E che nella città di Rhodi ritirare si dovessero le genti de Casali di Fando, di Psito, di Archipoli, d’Arima, di Calaties, e di Demathia; other defence preparations can be found in 321 (1470), 375 (1475), and 387 (1479); Poutiers, 190-6.

11. S.C. Spiteri, Fortresses of the Knights (Malta, 2001) 28.

12. Q. Hughes & A. Migos, ‘Rhodes: The Turkish Sieges’ in Fort XXI (1993), 5.

13. L. Villena, ‘The Iberian Strategic Castle’ in IBI Bulletin 47 (1990-1), 59-66.

14. B.H. St. J. O’Neil, ‘Rhodes and the Origins of the Bastion’ in The Antiquaries Journal (1954); Spiteri, 106-125 15. For early Italian military engineers see J.R., Hale, Renaissance Fortifications: Art or engineering? passim; R. Santoro, Architetti Italiani Operanti alle Difese dello Stato dei Cavalieri di Rodi in Architetti e Ingegneri Militari all’ estero dall XV al XVIII Secolo, Istituto Italiano dei Castelli (1994), 33-7.

16. A. Luttrell & K. Jeppesson, The Maussollein at Harlikarnassus (London, 1991), 108: 17. AOM 394, f.246v.

18. Luttrell and Jeppesson, 169.

19. Bosio, I, 393, 400, 411-2.

20. Bosio, I, 335.

21. G. Gerola, ‘Il contributo dell’Italia alle Opere d’arte militare rodiesi in Atti Veneti 89 (Venice, 1930)’, 1015-27.

22. Bosio, I, 624.

ARX- ONLINE JOURNAL OF MILITARYARCHITECTURE

NEW PUBLICATION ON THE FOUGASSE The excavation of the fougasse at ix-Xatt lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ahmar in Gozo during the summer months of 2005 was the first ever scientifically documented operation of its type in Malta. It was conducted by the Superintendence of the Cultural Heritage in conjunction with the Fortress Explorer Society. The excavation was aimed to combine a series of other similar procedures with historical research, which is intended to document Maltaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique collection of surviving fougasses.

The excavation has provided more precise information on the fougasse and the stone projects which it fired. This fougasses was accidentally discovered by Mr Mike Spiteri after a particularly heavy rainstorm earlier in 2005 had carried away the top soil along a stretch of foreshore at ix-Xatt l-Ahmar. The survey also located two other 'unknown' fougasses, likewise filled in with soil and debris.

Excavation works commenced on 26 May 2005 and lasted until 8 July 2005.

The team also excavated the partly filled-in fougasse at Ramla l-Hamra in Gozo.

The results of the archaeological excavation together with new historical studies are being prepared for publication later this year.

49 / ISSUE 5/ 2008