Draughtsman engineers serving the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries

JUANELO TURRIANO LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF ENGINEERING

Draughtsman Engineers Serving the Spanish Monarchy in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries Alicia Cámara Muñoz (ed.)

JUANELO TURRIANO LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF ENGINEERING

Draughtsman Engineers Serving the Spanish Monarchy in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

Alicia Cámara Muñoz (ed.)

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http://dimh.hypotheses.org/

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Published in the framework of R&D+I project HAR 2012-31117.

El dibujante ingeniero al servicio de la monarquía hispánica. Siglos XVI-XVIII (DIMH) [draughtsman engineers serving the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries] Funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness Head researcher, Alicia Cámara Muñoz

2016

www.juaneloturriano.com

Design, modelling and production: Ediciones del Umbral

© of the edition, Fundación Juanelo Turriano © of the texts, their authors © of photographs and drawings, their authors

ISBN:

978-84-942695-8-5

Original title: El dibujante ingeniero al servicio de la monarquía hispánica. Siglos XVI-XVIII © Fundación Juanelo Turriano, 2016

The Fundación Juanelo Turriano has made every effort possible to find out who the owners of the copyrights are for all the images that appear here and to find out what reproduction permits are required.

If there have been any unintentional omissions, the owners of the rights or their representatives may write to Fundación Juanelo Turriano.

FUNDACIÓN JUANELO TURRIANO

TRUSTEES PRESIDENT

Victoriano Muñoz Cava VICE PRESIDENT

Pedro Navascués Palacio SECRETARY

José María Goicolea Ruigómez MEMBERS

José Calavera Ruiz David Fernández-Ordóñez Hernández José Antonio González Carrión Fernando Sáenz Ridruejo José Manuel Sánchez Ron HONORARY PRESIDENT

Francisco Vigueras González

FOREWORD

From the time of the Renaissance when engineers began to be spoken of until the specialization of the branches of engineering which took place in the 18th century, history has told us a lot about the uses these professionals made of drawing. Some fragments of this history are related in these pages, which are the result of a research project that seemed to be necessary because drawing was involved in all the studies carried out on the history of engineering in the Modern Age. Research had to turn its spotlight on these images, which is why we assembled an interdisciplinary team to develop the project El dibujante ingeniero al servicio de la monarquĂ­a hispĂĄnica. Siglos XVI-XVIII [draughtsman engineers serving the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries] (HAR2012-31117), financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. This book is the result of the project.

The collection Juanelo Turriano Lectures on the history of engineering is the ideal vehicle for publishing the results of this research, previously in the original language and now in English.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface ...............................................................................................................................11 ALICIA CÁMARA

I 1

ENGINEERS VS ARCHITECTS, DESIGN DRAWING

Drawing Instruments, Engineering Methods and Representation Systems in Sixteenth- through Eighteenth Centuries Fortification Design..............................17 ALFONSO MUÑOZ COSME

2

From Stonecutting to Descriptive Geometry. Orthographic Projection and Military Engineering from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment......................45 JOSÉ CALVO LÓPEZ

3

Eighteenth Century Engineers’ and Architects’ Drawings for the «Royal Sites»: Survey Record and Design ........................................................................................69 JAVIER ORTEGA VIDAL

4

Military Map-Making Urgency in Early Eighteenth Century Spain.

Ordinance of Engineers and the Academy of Mathematics .......................................91 JUAN MIGUEL MUÑOZ CORBALÁN

5

Methodology Applicable to the Graphic Analysis of Fortification Projects ...............119 FERNANDO COBOS

II 6

DESCRIBING FRONTIERS

Keeping Secrets and Mapping Frontiers: Government and Image in the Spanish Monarchy ............................................................................................143 CARLOS JOSÉ HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ

7

Luis Pizaño and his Projects for Roses: Idea, Drawing and Decision.......................181 PABLO DE LA FUENTE DE PABLO

8

Alliance or Defence: Military Strategy and Diplomacy in the Spanish Monarchy’s Seventeenth Century Projects for Western Liguria..................................................197 CONSUELO GÓMEZ LÓPEZ

9

City, War and Drawing in the Sixteenth Century: from Tripoli to the Moroccan Atlantic ........................................................................................221 ANTONIO BRAVO NIETO y SERGIO RAMÍREZ GONZÁLEZ

10

Designing the Bastion against the Turks: Sicily and Malta ......................................247 MAURIZIO VESCO

11

Defending a Border. Piedmont and Lombardy Cities in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century ....................................................................................271 ANNALISA DAMERI

III 12

DISSEMINATION: CUSTOM AND FORM

The Rationalisation and Codification of the Cartographic Practices of French Military Engineers under Louis XIV........................................................297 ISABELLE WARMOES

13

The Engineer, the Royal Academies, and the Drawing of Maps and Plans in France in the Early Modern Period .....................................................................315 EMILIE D’ORGEIX

14

«Looking at the World on Two Sheets of Paper»: the Image of the Orb and Mathematics in the Education of Prince Philip III .................................................331 MARGARITA-ANA VÁZQUEZ-MANASSERO

15

«Tengo gran macchina di cose per intagliare...» [I have a large collection of things to be engraved...]. The Drawings of Commander Tiburzio Spannocchi, Chief Engineer of the Kingdoms of Spain ...............................................................351 ALICIA CÁMARA

IV 16

DIGITAL HUMANITIES IN THE DIMH PROJECT

Modelling, Access and Visualization in the DIMH Spanish Project.........................383 ANA GARCÍA SERRANO y ÁNGEL CASTELLANOS

17

Future Answers to the Historian: the Current Development of the Semantic Web in the Area of Historical Archives ....................................................................405 JESÚS LÓPEZ DÍAZ

BOOKS PUBLISHED BY FUNDACIÓN JUANELO TURRIANO .....................................................................414

Preface ALICIA CÁMARA

In 1590 a Flemish youth was discovered measuring the walls of La Coruña. We don’t know what happened to him afterwards, but he was probably discovered as a result of the control that the corregidor [local, administrative and judicial official in the city designated by the king] had to exercise to ensure that no one should draw the city walls, especially in threatened cities like La Coruña which had been attacked by the English the year before. Measurements and drawings guaranteed the exactitude of the information on city walls and frontiers, whether one’s own or those of the enemy. Drawing skills were not always imperative when the need was urgent, and we imagine that the drawings of the Flemish youth who was measuring the walls were not very good, but they would have given invaluable information to the English enemy. In the opposite case, among the papers of García de Loaysa conserved in the National Library of Spain, there is a clumsy but expressive drawing of the Tower of London, which accompanied a map of the European scene through which the Spanish armada was going to move against England. The world of spying could permit the lack of perfection in the representations, but the king’s engineers had to make exact drawings, with no concessions to invention with the exception of adornments and cartouches, and if they were not good draughtsmen they had to have recourse to capable painters. Thus for example, when Giovan Antonio Nobile was designated Chief Engineer of the kingdom of Sicily in 1572, he had to look in all the places which were going to be fortified for painters who were masters of colour and drawing, to make the plans of the projected fortifications and the territory in which they were to be built. The uses of images can be approached from so many different scientific disciplines and this one of the exercise of power over territories is just one more, but we believe that it is determinant to evaluate the important role of engineers’ drawings in the government of states throughout the Modern Age.

11

The engineers drew, but these drawings had to be seen, analyzed, debated and decisions on the execution of the projects had to be made; and this was the job of the king and his counsellors. We know that drawing and the science of fortification were part of the education of princes and noblemen, and even emperors, as Francisco de Holanda reminds us when talking of Charles V and Maximilian. In De rege et regis institutione, the work dedicated by Juan de Mariana to the education of Phillip III, the prince was recommended to learn geometry and arithmetic, among other reasons to «construir edificios y fortificar de acuerdo con la ciencia de los castillos y baluartes» [construct buildings and fortify according to the science of castles and bastions]. And the fact is that territories and fortifications, explained and represented in maps, with chorography and drawings, only existed if there was an image with which to recognize and travel through the dominions. For example, Sancho de Londoño wrote in 1568 that to understand a battle field it was necessary to have a painting of the province, the roads, and everything that could affect an army at war. It was also necessary in times of peace, and thus, in 1574 the state of Milan was so important for the Spanish monarchy as it was «paso y puerta de Italia» [the pass and door to Italy], that it became necessary to have a «carta, y descripción» [chart and description] with all the forts, passes, mountains, valleys, rivers, streams, and any other circumstances which would permit a thorough knowledge of those territories. This also applied to the cities at war, and at the beginning of the 18th century it was specified that a general had to have the drawn plan of the city he was going to besiege, but also the surrounding terrain with its hills, valleys, rivers, woods, swamps and roads by which help could come.

In the progressive professionalisation of the engineers’ drawings, the description coexisted with the plan, and in this process the difference with the military, often claimed to be the true sages of fortification, was more and more evident. Cristobal de Rojas in his treatise echoed what was happening when underlining that these «soldados viejos» [old soldiers] knew so much about fortification «porque lo tratan al vivo, y lo demás es pintado» [because they deal with it directly, and the rest is painted]. This «painted» element introduced a radical change not only in military history but also in engineering, architecture and the history of science, and was accompanied by the development of scientific instruments to measure the world. This «painted» element is what we are speaking of here, leaving for another occasion the three dimensional models which were created, of which we conserve very few, and which have to be traced in archived documentation. The description of the frontiers, of necessity secret, was one of the responsibilities of the engineers, and their drawings constitute an important heritage for understanding the territories as they were then and their transformation, which is why one part of this book is devoted to these frontiers.

The permeability between architecture and engineering throughout the three centuries studied, has led us to devote another section to the study of a professional differentiation which many testimonies refute. As an example, at the end of the 16th century the count of Portalegre, governor of Portugal, speaking about the military engineer Leonardo Turriano related him, naturally without having to explain it, with drawing and architecture, when writing that he had to find out what the engineer was complaining about him for if «architectos y debujantes me goviernan» [architects and draughtsmen control me]. This Leonardo Turriano, who was present like a modern day Pliny at the

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

eruption of a volcano in order to describe it, and said of himself that «no soy solamente historiador, ni exclusivamente geógrafo, ni tampoco simple arquitecto militar» [I am not only a historian, nor exclusively a geographer, nor a simple military architect], developed all this knowledge as the king’s engineer, which reinforces the questioning of these professional frontiers constructed a posteriori by historiography. Finally, in the line of this argument, when Juan Agustín Ceán Bermúdez, an erudite expert who would mark the guidelines in the construction of the history of Spanish art, in the prologue to his Diccionario de los más ilustres profesores de las Bellas Artes en España, explained that he had opted not to include architects in his work, he reasoned as follows: «¿cómo me atrevería yo á excluir de ella los arquitectos militares, los hidráulicos, los de puentes y calzadas, y otros semejantes, ni tampoco á incluir á los meros maestros de obras, aparejadores y albañiles?» [How would I dare to exclude from it the military, hydrological, bridge and road engineers, and other similar professionals, nor to include the mere master builders, master craftsmen and masons?]. With time Spanish historiography gradually included these master builders or master craftsmen in the history of architecture, but it did not do so in the same way with the military, hydrological, bridges and road engineers, at times stripped of their engineering profession when they entered into the history of architecture. Going back to Ceán, if this was being considered in 1800, we could ask ourselves what he would have written nowadays, when the history of war, geography and science seems to complicate even more the professional definition of the architect engineers to whom he refers.

Among the research activities which we carried out from 2013 to 2015 are seminars and courses to which were invited researchers who were not involved in the R+D project, and who have been invited to participate in this book. Thanks to all the authors the final result is that we have made progress in the consideration of how engineers’ drawings explain questions which affect the history of architecture, of the city or of the territory, as well as the history of a profession which was greatly transformed over these centuries, using drawing for many different ends. Other topics presented include how the experience of the French monarchy introduces a point of comparison with the Spanish monarchy, the relation of these drawings with the history of science, the development of the representation systems used and scientific instruments, the role of the academies, or the use of these drawings in dealing with the fortified heritage. Stories of power, the education of the prince, the secret character of these images, war, engineering, science and the codification of knowledge, resound in its pages. Finally, the possibility offered for access via the Internet to the digitization of data on the drawings conserved in the archives, has meant that this project has been a pioneer in the field of the Digital Humanities, with the creation of a web application which incorporates the data and the semantic structure, which may favour progress in the investigation of engineers’ drawings.

The interdisciplinary character of the project, in the frame work of which this book was created, reflects the changes which have for some time now been occurring in the study of images. This break with a specialization which we have inherited, leads us to trust that these pages will serve as a starting point for future research.

Back to Contents

PREFACE

13

I ENGINEERS VS ARCHITECTS, DESIGN DRAWING

1 Drawing Instruments, Engineering Methods and Representation Systems in Sixteenth- through Eighteenth Centuries Fortification Design ALFONSO MUÑOZ COSME1 Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. E.T.S. de Arquitectura. Director of IPCE Translation: MARGARET CLARK

ABSTRACT

With a view to understanding how fortifications were designed, this chapter first studies military engineers’ drawing, surveying and stake-out instruments. It then describes design methods by analysing layouts, dimensional and trigonometric tables and conceptual maxims or rules and the respective results. Lastly, both mock-up and two-dimensional representation systems are reviewed.

Analysing and cross-referencing the findings for each of the aforementioned facets afford a fuller understanding of the nature of sixteenth- through eighteenth-century fortification design. Initially associated with natural determinants, such design was transformed in Baroque construction into the repetition of geometric prototypes, only to revert to an inductive, albeit regulated, approach in the transition to neo-classicism.

KEYWORDS

Instruments, methods, systems, drafting, design, representation, fortification.

17

DRAWING, SURVEYING AND STAKE-OUT INSTRUMENTS

The design and construction instruments used by sixteenth-century military engineers were not materially different from the devices employed by contemporary topographers and architects to design and survey existing or stake-out new structures. Basic drafting tools such as the compass, angle square and ruler or straightedge were described by Antonio Averlino Filarete2 and mentioned as well, along with the plumb bob and level, by Leon Battista Alberti3.

Although for many decades these were the primary instruments for designing or staking out new or surveying existing buildings, in the mid-sixteenth century new and more accurate measuring, surveying and stake-out tools began to be crafted. Cosimo Bartoli, for instance, in his treatise on how to measure distances published in Venice in the midsixteenth century, recommended the quadrant (alone or in a circular sector), the astrolabe and the cross- (or Jacob’s) staff4.

In the early sixteenth century, Andrés García de Céspedes, in his Libro de instrumentos de geometría5, described three instruments: a quadrant of his own invention, the Jacob’s staff and a level used by Juan de Herrera. Robert Fludd’s Utriusque Cosmi Maioris scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica atque Technica Historia, published in Germany in 16176, described a surveyor’s staff, triangle («hypotenuse ruler»), designer’s straightedge, and the main staff and transom for a Jacob’s staff.

Many of these instruments were designed and crafted by architects or engineers.

Tiburcio Spannocchi, for instance, built an ingenious brass T-square. Fitted with a magnetic compass to measure angles and determine wall orientation, it was described by Cristóbal de Rojas in his treatise, along with a quadrant for measuring distances and heights and a level for pipe and culvert layout7 [FIG. 1].

González de Medina Barba described a rudimentary stake-out system with a plane table and a method for measuring distances with two hinged straightedges. Cristóbal Lechuga, in turn, used what he called a planisphere, a circle graduated with sight lines, two of them mobile, to stake out angles on drawings8 [FIG. 2]. A treatise authored by Friar Lorenzo de San Nicolás contained a copy of the level depicted by Cristóbal de Rojas and a discussion of the quadrant and forestaff or Jacob’s staff. The second part of this treatise described a trammel used to draw ellipses9.

FIG. 1 CRISTÓBAL DE ROJAS. Tiburcio Spannochi’s instruDespite the development of new ment. Teórica y práctica de fortificación, conforme a las medidas y instruments, many authors believed defensas de los tiempos, repartida en tres partes, Luis Sánchez, Madrid, 1598, fol. 82. that all fortifications could be drawn

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

CRISTÓBAL LECHUGA. Planisphere. Discurso del capitán Cristóbal Lechuga en que trata de la artillería y de todo lo necesario a ella. Milan, Royal and Ducal Palace, Marco Tulio Malatesta, 1611, p. 246.

FIG. 2

with only a straightedge and a compass. Enríquez de Salamanca contended in his treatise that engineers needed no more than «a compass, a straightedge, a pencil, a board the size of a hand and sine or logarithmic charts»10. Alonso de Zepeda y Adrada, in turn, published a book in Brussels in 1669 entitled Epítome de la fortificación moderna, así en lo regular como en lo irregular, reducida a la regla y al compás...11 [epitome of the modern fortification... reduced to the straightedge and the compass] and claimed that he would use only those two instruments to build his models and examples.

Nonetheless, layout complexity, the diversity of scales and the growing dependence on geometric models led to the standard use of the proportional compass (the «sector», an early computing instrument also initially known as a proportional compass, was attributed to Galileo Galilei12). Manuscripts on the subject in Spain’s National Library13 attest to its widespread use in the second half of the seventeenth century. It appeared in a book by Miguel Pérez de Xea, who attributed its invention to Daniel Iorez14, and in a treatise authored

by Julio César Firrufino15 [FIG. 3], which FIG. 3 JULIO CÉSAR FIRRUFINO. El perfecto artillero. also described how to make angle squares, Theórica y práctica. Madrid, Juan Martín del Barrio, 1642. p. 157. compasses, quadrants and levels.

DRAWING INSTRUMENTS, ENGINEERING METHODS AND REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS

19

JOSÉ ZARAGOZA. Proportional compass. Chest of mathematical instruments for Charles II. National Library Museum. Photo by José Luis Municio. Cultural Heritage Institute of Spain.

FIG. 4

References to the proportional compass are also found in Vicente Mut’s treatise16, along with a discussion of other instruments mentioned in the author’s description of how fortifications are staked out and built. He nonetheless warned of the inaccuracy of small instruments: «What matters when observing angles is not to rely passionately on the brass planisphere, optical square, magnetic compass, graphic parallelogram or any other small instrument, which I have seen to mislead many, to the detriment of the art itself»17.

A collection of 14 mathematical instruments on display in Spain’s National Library Museum, commissioned by Juan Francisco de la Cerda, Duque de Medinaceli, from José Zaragoza for King Charles II is an exceptionally fine example of standard seventeenthcentury instruments. The commission was a gift for the king’s 14th birthday and although the instruments were made hastily and very likely seldom used by the monarch for their specified purpose, they constitute a valuable legacy [FIG. 4].

The chest is a leather-bound wood case containing three velvet-padded trays holding a brass straightedge, a proportional compass, triangle, a cross-staff, a pantograph, a large equilateral triangle, a small equilateral triangle, a telescope, a musical instrument tuner and luthier’s aid (on the reverse side of the proportional compass), a compass with a single leg, a Gunter’s or surveyor’s chain, a lignum vitae plane table, a stand for the table and an L-square. The collection included a book that served as both an instructions manual and a treatise on military architecture18.

With the turn of the century, the proportional compass was gradually eclipsed by the graduated semicircle. Fernández de Medrano explained how to use the latter to draw regular polygons and fortification floor plans19. He also described and explained the use of a graduated metallic circle with a straightedge bearing transoms to measure angles. He included a discussion of a straightedge with different scales applied for the same operations as performed with a proportional compass20.

The Royal Ordinance and Code of 22 July 1739 for Teaching Mathematics at the Academy of Barcelona listed the instruments that were to be on hand at the academy for practical exercises: semicircles, quadrants with telescopes, levels, angle squares, bevel gauges, proportional compasses, plane tables and compasses, i.e., a full set of all the contemporary instruments21. The Royal Ordinance of 29 December 1751 for the Academies of Barcelona, Ceuta and Oran contained a similar list22.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Records have been conserved from the mid-eighteenth century of a series of instruments for the Artillery Academies of Barcelona and Cadiz. Shipped from London by manufacturer G. Adams, they included two altazimuths, two plane tables, levels, telescopes, compasses, graduated semicircles, gunner’s quadrants, Gunter’s chains, tripods and others23.

Miguel Sánchez Taramas published the Spanish translation of a book by John Muller that listed stake-out instruments such as the plane table and altazimuth24. Lastly, according to El Arquitecto práctico civil militar y agrimensor, a book by Zaragoza-born architect Antonio Plo y Camín published at Madrid in 1767, the instruments chiefly used by eighteenth-century architects and engineers were compasses and straightedges for drawing and graduated semicircles and masonry squares for drawing lines in the field. The manufacture and use of the more elaborate but equally popular proportional compasses and levels were described more fully25.

FORTIFICATION DESIGN AND ENGINEERING METHODS

The methods for laying out fortifications changed significantly in the late sixteenth century, concurring with a variation in the scale of fortifications. As earlier fortifications were designed to be defended with artillery, their lines of defence were determined by cannon range. New siege techniques and every larger armies, however, led to the design of new fortifications to be defended at musket range, substantially shortening the length of the line of defence and ruling out forts based on the tenaille system except in very small structures.

Evidence of this can be found in Jean Errard de Bar-le-Duc’s 1594 treatise or the comparisons in Cristóbal de Rojas’s 1598 book between earlier structures and the fortifications recommended by Italian writers, which he regarded as also overly large. He concluded by putting forward his own ideas, based on experience: 360 feet for the curtain and 260 for the bastion, although 350-400 foot curtain lengths were acceptable. This shortening of distances was attendant not only upon the defence weaponry to be used, but also upon the belief that short-range defence was more effective and the respective fortification works less costly26.

CRISTÓBAL DE ROJAS. Fortification with four bastions. In Teórica y práctica de fortificación, conforme a las medidas y defensas de los tiempos, repartida en tres partes, Luis Sánchez, Madrid, 1598, fol. 42.

FIG. 5

DRAWING INSTRUMENTS, ENGINEERING METHODS AND REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS

21

After defining the chief dimensions and stressing the importance and utility of scale, Cristóbal de Rojas discussed the site where fortifications should be built. He then outlined the basic models for triangular, square, pentagonal, hexagonal or heptagonal fortifications based on a regular polygon with sides measuring 600 or 660 feet divided into five parts, with the middle three serving as the curtain and the two outer parts as demigorges [FIG. 5]. The bastion fronts were defined by the line of defence rasant running between the end of the curtain wall and the outermost point of the flank, which was perpendicular to the curtain and measured 60 feet in triangular and 90 in all higher-order polygons27. He proposed a wall height of 45 or 46 feet over the horizon, including the six comprising the parapet28.

This proportional fortification design, with the inner side of the polygon divided into curtain wall and demigorge, was the standard approach adopted in Spanish treatises in the first third of the seventeenth century. Diego González de Medina Barba also calculated the length of the curtains on the grounds of musket range and proposed similar dimensions29. He claimed that they should be «forty feet high from the bottom of the moat to the [base of the] parapet, plus five but no more in the parapet»30. Lastly, he defined the length of the bastion front to be two-thirds of the curtain or 250 feet and their height to be 2 feet taller than the curtains31.

Similar although somewhat larger proportions were proposed for fortresses with up to six sides by Captain Cristóbal Lechuga in a speech published at Milan in 1611. For this author 800 feet was the base figure, half of which for the curtain with 120 foot flanks on each end, 30 for the casemate and 90 for its cover. Part (26 feet) of the total 40 foot height was masonry and the rest (14 feet) earthen construction32.

This proportional approach to fortifications fell drastically out of favour in the sixteen forties when as a result of the revolts in Catalonia and Portugal, the defeats at Rocroi and Lens and the Peace of Westphalia, Spain lost its hegemonic hold on the continent.

The predominant models no longer drew from Italo-Spanish tradition but from Dutch and central European designs. The angular approach appeared for the first time in Spanish texts in a book written by Madrilenian engineer Juan Santans y Tapia, entitled Tratado de fortificación militar destos tiempos breve e intelegible33 [FIG. 6]. The author described three ways to calculate the bastion or shoulder angle. The first consisted in adding 20° to half of the polygon angle, as per the tables in a treatise by Adam Freitag; the second in adding 15°as proposed by Samuel Marolois, and in the third 25, provided, in all three, that the final angle did not exceed 90°.

Santans y Tapia built length tables for the figures to two proportions based on the angles found, with constant dimensions at a ratio of 2/3 for the curtain and the bastion front, as in the treatises by Adam Freitag and Mathias Dogen. He also provided tables for smaller fortifications, likewise as per Freitag and Dogen, and described outworks, specifically ravelins, lunettes, tenailles and crownworks. Despite its inaccuracies and contradictions, Santans’s treatise revolutionised Spanish literature on the subject, inasmuch as it introduced major innovations: angle-based calculation, outworks and the idea that fortifications could be designed to differing dimensions.

A few years after the appearance of Santans’s text, Portuguese engineer Diego Enríquez de Villegas, in his Academia de fortificación de plazas y nuevo método de fortificar

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

una Plaza Real, enumerated and compared all the systems proposed by Italian, French, Dutch and Spanish authors. He ultimately proposed a polygon measuring 1100 feet on each side, which he identified with «Bilbao» musket range, as the optimal model. It had 180 foot demigorges, 740 foot curtains, 133 foot flanks, 120 foot casemate covers and a bastion front slightly shorter than half of the curtain. Although the dimensions make this model look outdated, Enríquez de Villegas introduced an essential innovation, the determinate system. While citing the methods used by other authors and using the division of the inner side of the polygon as a basis for design, he specified the dimensions of each fortification element, FIG. 6 JUAN SANTANS Y TAPIA. Portrait included in Tratado an approach widely followed throughde fortificación militar destos tiempos breve e intelegible, Brusout the second half of the seventeenth sels, Guilielmo Scheybels, 1644. Note the pantometer in his left hand. century. Justification for this change lay in the prevalence of practical over theoretical considerations34.

In a treatise entitled Arquitectura Militar, Vicente Mut, a mathematician, astronomer and engineer from Mallorca, addressed some of Santans’s innovations. He established a system based on the range of musket fire, which he estimated to be 800 to 1000 geometric feet. On those grounds he took 750 geometric feet as a basis to keep all distances within firing range. He then calculated the capital by drawing a line perpendicular to the radius from a point at two-fifths of the length of the side. He found the sagitta for the midpoint of the curtain and used that distance to define the points on both sides from which to draw the line of defence rasant and bastion fronts. The flanks were established as perpendiculars to the inner side drawn from the transposition on the outer side of one-third of the inner35 [FIG. 7].

The second method, angle-based calculation, was described from the outer side: the curtain and side of the bastion had fixed dimensions while all others were based on three methods for calculating angles. Two of Mut’s three methods were similar to the ones proposed by Santans, while in the third, the shoulder angle, which was not to exceed 90°, was four-thirds of the polygon angle.

Mut also explained how to reduce these fortification models to smaller dimensions using a scales or proportional compass. Lastly, he described outworks such as the ravelin, demi-lune, tenaille and hornwork and the fortification profile, lowering the height: after pondering the advantages and drawbacks of tall and low-lying structures, he opted for an intermediate measure: 20 to 24 feet over the horizon. He also listed 24 principles or

DRAWING INSTRUMENTS, ENGINEERING METHODS AND REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS

23

FIG. 7 VICENTE MUT. Graphic systems for calculating fortifications. Arquitectura militar. Primera parte. De las fortificaciones regulares y irregulares, por don Vicente Mut, sargento mayor, ingeniero y cronista mayor del Reino de Mallorca, printed by Francisco Oliver, Mallorca, 1664, first engraving.

rules for irregular fortifications, pioneering the Spanish tradition of establishing fortification maxims.

In a treatise published in Brussels, Alonso de Zepeda put forward 22 maxims and a compendium of different seventeenth-century methods for designing fortifications, including proportional, angle-based and determinate systems, in addition to a number of more ingenious procedures, possibly of his own invention.

In the proportional method, he divided the inner side into six parts and used the resulting length for the demigorge and the traverse; the front of the bastion was drawn as the line running to the capital from the inner angle of the traverse in square and pentagonal fortifications, from one-third of the curtain in hexagons, heptagons and octagons, and from the midpoint in higher-order polygons. A similar method was proposed in a treatise by Antoine de Ville36.

The second approach involved graphic calculations, dividing a 20° angle into two unequal parts, measuring 8°30’ and 11°30’. With a compass, a circular sector measuring the same as the inner side was drawn over this angle. Its intersections with the three angles in descending order yielded the dimensions of the capital, demigorge and flank.

In the third or determinate method, a proportional compass was used for adjustment to the other dimensions. The result found by taking the bastion front dimension defined

by Cristóbal de Rojas as the starting point and establishing identical lengths for the

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

demigorge and traverse was very similar to the model proposed by Earl Pagan. The fourth procedure was analogous to the third, except that a scales instead of a proportional compass was used to adjust the other dimensions.

The fifth method was also proportional, taking one-third of the side for the capital, one-fifth for the demigorge and three-fourths of the latter for the flank, except in square fortifications, where the measure was two-thirds. Zepeda also described a graphic approach in which the polygon half-angle was divided in three (four in the pentagon and hexagon) and the respective lines of defence and flank were drawn. In the profile proposed, the height was 26 feet: 20 to the cordon and the rest for the 1.5 foot wide parapet37 [FIG. 8].

In Geometría Militar published in Naples in 1671, Pedro Antonio Ramón Folch de Cardona, like FIG. 8 ALONSO DE ZEPEDA Y ADRADA. Epítome de la fortificación moderna, así en lo regular como en lo irregular, reducida a la regla y al Freitag, Santans and Mut, put compás, por diversos modos, y los más fáciles para mover la tierra. Brusforward an angle-based system for sels, Francisco Foppens. 1669, illustration 9. building regular fortifications, adding 20° to the polygon halfangle and establishing the maximum line of defence at 60 double cubits38. He proposed an unusual system for wall height, which rose with the number of sides of the polygon: from 15 and one-half feet for a four-bastion fortress to 24 for fortifications with over eight. The parapets, measuring 4 feet on the outside and 6 on the in, were built over this wall39.

This author’s treatise included a host of polymetric tables for calculating fortifications of any size, with polygon sides measuring from 6 to 82 double cubits and variable angles, thereby converting the angle-based calculation used into a complex determinate system applicable to regular and irregular fortifications alike. It also contained tables for calculating all the section heights depending on the place to be defended and the angles.

José Zaragoza, in Fábrica y uso de varios instrumentos methamáticos, as per Antoine de Ville, defined a musket fire range of 200 geometric steps, equivalent to 1172 Spanish feet. In plan the fortification was determined by the side, demigorge and traverse dimensions in each polygon, although the bastion front measured the same in all40. The wall

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25

was 45.5 feet high from the bottom of the ditch or moat, 4.5 of which in the parapet and 20 in the moat41.

The method proposed by José Zaragoza was entirely determinate, with pre-set dimensions for all the elements. This system was described in Zaragoza’s manual for the 14-year-old king, which may explain why he chose this simplified approach. The author included nine general rules for the outworks and six for irregular fortifications, warning in the last that where irregularities were present, all should be left «to the author’s ingenuity, for no general rules can be prescribed for the countless circumstances that may arise»42.

An anonymous treatise entitled Escuela de Palas reviewed the works of all the major European writers, describing and building a total of 53 models, to which the author added his own at the end [FIG. 9]. In it he took a 900 geometric foot line of defence as the core figure, in keeping with a musket fire range of 1000. The flank measured 160 feet, except in squares, where it was 130. The demigorge was the same as the flank and the distance between the inner and outer side was 300 feet43. This was, then, a determinate model, typical of the second half of the seventeenth century. The treatise also contained 28 maxims aimed to completely standardise the art of fortification44.

Escuela de Palas constituted a turning point in fortification design. The discussion in the same treatise of over 50 methods denoted practical eclecticism as well as a certain loss of esteem for geometric methods. That was to translate into their gradual phase-out and the increasingly greater reliance on designers’ experience-based application of maxims, which were listed more exhaustively in this than any other treatise.

Dimension and angle tables and determinate systems, then, fell steadily into disuse as engineering began to be governed primarily by fortification maxims or rules. While

TABLE 1 DESIGN METHODS USED IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES TREATISE/METHOD

PROPORTIONAL

ANGULAR

DETERMINATE

OTHER

MAXIMS

1598. Cristóbal de Rojas. Teórica y práctica de la fortificación.

1599. Diego G. de Medina Barba. Examen de fortificación.

1611. Cristóbal Lechuga. Discurso... con un tratado de fortificación.

1644. Juan Santans y Tapia. Tratado de fortificación militar.

1651. Diego Enríquez de Villegas. Academia de fortificación de plazas...

1664. Vicente Mut. Arquitectura militar...

24

1669. Alonso de Zepeda y Adrada. Epítome de la fortificación moderna...

22

1671. Pedro Folch de Cardona. Geometría militar.

1675. José Zaragoza. Fábrica y uso de varios instrumentos mathemáticos.

9+6

1693. Anonymous. Escuela de Palas.

28

1700. Sebastián Fernández de Medrano. El arquitecto perfecto...

15

1704. José Cassani. Escuela militar de fortificación…

11

1712. Vicente Tosca. Compendio matemático.

13

1744. Félix Prósperi. La Gran Defensa. Nuevo Méthodo de Fortificación...

8

1757. Manuel Centurión Guerrero de Torres. Ciencia de Militares…

4+4

1772. Pedro de Lucuze. Principios de fortificación...

6+7

Author’s formulation using data taken from the respective treatises.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

such maxims had begun to appear in treatises on fortification since the times of Jean Errard de Bar-le-Duc, they were unknown in the Spanish literature until Vicente Mut set down rules for irregularly shaped fortifications in 1664. They were subsequently found in all treatises through the end of the eighteenth century.

The wide variety of rules in Spanish treatises can be classified under two main headings: strategic design, or dimensions and proportions. Of the 83 maxims set out by Spanish authors, approximately two-thirds were strategic and functional and onethird dimensional. One-third of the former referred to outworks.

The strategic maxims most frequently cited called for ensuring that all points were flanked and defended at musket fire range, all sides were duly fortified, all building outworks were within sight of the positions closest to the place defended, and FIG. 9 Author’s construction. Escuela de Palas o sea Curso Mathematico. Milan, Royal Printers, 1693, p. 133. fortifications were designed to as regular a shape and with the smallest number of bastions possible. The most common dimensional maxims, in turn, required shoulder angles of between 60° and 90° and lines of defence no longer than musket fire range, while large gorges were purported to be more effective than small ones. The most original maxim was formulated

by Félix Prósperi: «To build good fortifications do not rely on author’s rules or individual maxims»45.

In his treatise entitled El arquitecto perfecto en el arte militar, Sebastián Fernández de Medrano put forward 15 maxims in which he reverted to the proportional system for square fortifications, dividing the inner side into five and allocating three to the curtain and one to each demigorge. The flank, measuring two-thirds the demigorge, was perpendicular to the curtain and the bastion front was a prolongation of the line running from the inner vertex of the flank to the end of the opposite flank. Pentagonal fortifications were built similarly, with flanks measuring one-sixth of the inner side. Hexagonal were the same as pentagonal fortresses, except that the bastion front was drawn from threetenths of the inner side to the end of the opposite flank. In the otherwise analogous heptagonal structures, the point from which to draw the line of defence was found by extending the diameter for a distance defined by a line connecting the outer vertex of

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FIG. 10 SEBASTIÁN FERNÁNDEZ DE MEDRANO. Construction of the pentagon, hexagon and heptagon. El arquitecto perfecto en el arte militar, Henrico and Cornelio Verdussen, Antwerp, 1708, illustration II.

the flank perpendicularly to the extension of the diameter46. Walls were to rise from 15 to 25 and never more than 30 feet over the horizon47 [FIG. 10].

He also proposed an «author’s new [proportional] fortification method» with no right flanking angles. For square fortifications he divided the sides into five parts, assigning one to each demigorge. He drew lines at 110° angles from the ends of the curtain walls and on them, at a distance of thirteen-sixteenths from the demigorge, defined the end of the flank, which formed the line of defence. The flank was divided into five parts. The line joining the point at two-fifths from the shoulder vertex to the point at two-fifths of the flank established the opening of the casemate. This method was also applied to flanks for low-lying places and other polygons, in which the proportions were changed accordingly48.

In his Escuela militar de fortificación ofensiva y defensiva mathematician José Cassani included 11 maxims, most concurring with the rules set out either in the Escuela de Palas or Fernández de Medrano’s treatise49. He proposed a wall height of 19 or 20 Spanish feet over the horizon, ruling out heights of under 12. He set the line of defence at 900 feet, invoking «the most scholarly author of La Escuela de Palas» and furnished tables for determinate fortification50.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

The author also proposed a method of his own. A variation on the proportional approach, it divided the inner side into five parts, assigning one to each demigorge and defining the lines of defence by drawing a line from the midpoint of and perpendicular to the curtain measuring half of the length of the demigorge. The bounds of the bastions were set on the lines of defence at a distance equal to 11/10 the length of the curtain.

For pentagons he divided the half-side into sixths, with the demigorge measuring three and the perpendicular line at the curtain midpoint one. The edge of the bastion was positioned at a length equal to 11/7 of the curtain51. He also described fortification using tables or a proportional compass.

Oratorian priest and mathematician Tomás Vicente Tosca listed the maxims «that the Engineer must bear in mind, for the art of Fortification builds on them»52. Tosca defined a determinate system of fortification design based on an 800 Valencian or geometric foot line of defence, a 160 foot demigorge, an inner to outer polygon distance of 300 feet except in squares and pentagons, where it would respectively measure 200 and 260 feet, a 100° angle between flank and curtain, and shoulder angles of 85° for seven- or higherorder polygons and whatever the resultant angle would be in lower-order figures (70° in pentagons and 61° in squares).

Italian engineer Félix Prosperi published La Gran Defensa in 1744 in Mexico City. In it he listed eight maxims and described a peculiar fortification system in which bastion defence depended on ravelins, the sole outwork defined, to be defended from the flanks.

This system contravened a generally accepted maxim: that outworks should be visible and defended from the inner-most structures.

Pedro de Lucuze established only six general maxims and seven rules for outworks, as well as guidelines for dimensions expressed in Spanish rods: outer side, 420 rods; line of defence, 315; flank, 3; face, 117; and curtain 17853. He preferred solid to void bastions.

Four were the general rules, supplemented by three corollaries, in Manuel Centurión Guerrero de Torres’s treatise entitled Ciencia de Militares54. He emulated Vauban’s outer side approach to layout. The ends of the capitals were joined with a line at whose midpoint he drew a perpendicular toward the centre of the polygon. He defined a point on that line at a distance from the outer end of one-eighth in square, one-seventh in pentagonal and one-sixth in hexagonal fortifications which, connected to the edge of the capitals, determined the lines of defence. The bastion fronts were positioned at two-sevenths of the outer side of the lines of defence. An arc centred on the intersection of the lines of defence and drawn from the end of the front to the curtain defined the curtaintraverse vertex that closed the fortification55.

This overview of fortification design and layout development shows that fortification systems began to change at the turn of the sixteenth century, with reductions in size and the introduction of a proportional approach. For 30 or 40 years beginning in the sixteen forties, the angle-based layouts devised by Dutch and central European authors prevailed, but were replaced in the last quarter of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries by determinate fortification design, with pre-defined lengths and angles. The rest of the eighteenth century witnessed the substitution of fortification maxims or rules for geometric or determinate layouts.

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TABLE 2 COMPARISON OF SEVENTEENTH- AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FORTIFICATION MAXIMS OR RULES VICENTE ALONSO JOSÉ ESCUELA JOSÉ FERNÁNDEZ TOMÁS FÉLIX MANUEL PEDRO MUT DE ZARAGOZA DE PALAS CASSANI DE V. PRÓSPERI CENTURIÓN DE ZEPEDA MEDRANO TOSCA LUCUZE

All points flanked and defended with musket fire

1

Line of defence not longer than musket fire range All parts duly fortified

18

Command of outworks from closer structures

6, 15

1

1

11

1

1

1G

1, 1 E

17

3

4

1

2

3

2G

2

5

2

2

3P

5

23

10

12

4G

6

4

8

6

8 12

3G

4

21

1E

2E

3

Bastion angle from 60° to 90°

6

11

The smaller the number of bastions the better

9

1

2I

24

14

Come as close as possible to the regular fortification

3

22

1I

25

15

10

3

Large better than small gorges

9

All parts artillery-resistant

7

Flanks greater than 100 and less than 150 feet (largest flanks)

10

11

Bastion fronts defended by musket and artillery

16

15

Strongest possible bastions

8

Angles not under 80°

7

Need for outworks

22

6 10

6

2 1P 6

4P

9 4I

The less obtuse the flanking angle the better

5

7

Embanked better than hollow bastions

6

13

Fronts, 2/3 of curtain

16

5

Deep ditches

18

Earthwork parapets

19

27

Embankment and parapet

18

28

Ditch as long as the flank

20

13

8

Defensive parts should be enlarged whenever possible

5

3

All with their ditches connected to the fortress ditch with stockades

3E

4E

Made with the earth from their ditches and a strong parapet

4E

5E

Better if mined

5E

7E

Bastions not overly tall

9

11

Full visibility from every flank of opposite curtain, front, ditch, covered way

12

4

Curtains, fronts and capitals of sufficient magnitude

7

Traverses and fronts, essential parts

2

Uniform bastion fronts

4

Elude very acute and very obtuse angles

5

Uniformity of capacity to resist, not of lines

8

Bastion inequality is immaterial

10

The tenaille angle need not be less obtuse

11

Curtain with its traverses only on sea- or river-side

12

Weak parts, outworks or bastion-top walls

13

Small garrison: better demolish than expand

14

Own and enemy strength, site quality, first consideration

15

It suffices to remedy the major irregularities

16

Forfeit the part defended before the one that defends

17

Land most exposed to breach in wall, mining

19

Gate flanked by both fronts

20

Site quality, strength, support and enemy strength

21

Good second traverse flanking the fronts

23

The law and defence of reason, justice and faith, the strongest fortifications

24

Two hundred men suffice to defend a well-built bastion

2

Forts with some obstacles are not so good

3

A fort is better if it has more defence and less to defend

4

30

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

VICENTE ALONSO JOSÉ ESCUELA JOSÉ FERNÁNDEZ TOMÁS FÉLIX MANUEL PEDRO MUT DE ZARAGOZA DE PALAS CASSANI DE V. PRÓSPERI CENTURIÓN DE ZEPEDA MEDRANO TOSCA LUCUZE

Longest side no more than 150 geometric steps

12

Curtain no less than 300 nor more than 640 feet (Brussels voet)

13

Curtains defended from two flanks or with stockade and outer ditch

14

Small, readily removed units

6E

If raised post near, outwork

7E

Existence of curtain or bastion immaterial, need comes first

8E

Depending on the position to be defended, ravelins, hornworks or crownworks are needed

9E

If the walls are strong, they should be used as curtains

3I

Measurements, as in regular fortifications

5I

High, deep places, left to the author’s ingenuity

6I

No bastions with large circumferences

7

Bastions not too large

8

Flanks with casemates for artillery

13

Casemates better than false brayes

14

Bastion front depends on flanks

17

No wide, shallow ditches

19

No narrow, shallow ditches

20

Dry better than wet ditches (large site)

21

Wet ditches for small sites

22

Better flat and smooth

26

Oblique, close flanks

3

Line of defence should touch angle, not cut across flank

5

The triangle is not apt for fortifications

9

Honour and ensure consistency of maxims

11

Curtain from 400 to 500 feet

4

Covered way 25 to 30 feet wide

9

Sixty to 100 foot esplanade

10

Large, concealed flanks with continuous and perennial fire

2

To defend large areas with few troops, wide wet ditches

4

Wide and full ditches

5

Good fortification does not rely on individual maxims

7

Unexposed flanks

2P

If curtain protected by hornwork or tenaille, ravelin in the gorge

2E

If two, command from closer over farther hornwork

3E

On the fort side, open land with no embankments or parapets

6E

E: rules for outworks; I: rules for irregular fortifications: G: general rules; P: specific rules

Author’s formulation using data taken from the respective treatises.

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REPRESENTATIONAL SYSTEMS AND RULES

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, military cartography moved toward increasingly standardised and regulated design and representation [FIGS. 11-12]. Sixteenth-century drawings were mere rough sketches, rarely to scale, lacking orientation and at times combining several vantages. In the seventeenth, as a result of treatises on the subject and formal education in mathematics academies, representation was largely standardised, with more widespread use of geometric rules and scales. It was not until the late seventeenth and especially the eighteenth centuries, however, that military cartography became universally regulated, with firmly established representational codes.

In the early seventeenth century mock-ups, which were still the main tool for representing designs, were built for all major fortification projects56. Juan Bautista Antonelli’s manuscript recommended first drawing the floor plan «on which a model will be built out of earth or other material, with the height of the wall and depth of the ditch and ultimately the very image of a stronghold, for discussion and consideration by architects and warfare experts»57.

TIBURCIO SPANNOCCHI. Traza como se habría de proseguir la cerca de la ciudad de Cremona, 1595. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 07, 115.

FIG. 11

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

CAPITÁN BALDOVINO. Novara A, 1622. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 07, 196.

FIG. 12

CARLOS DE GRUNEMBERGH. Planta de estado que al presente se hallan las obras de la ciudadela de Mezina: Todas las obras que se ven de color colorado son las imperfectas; y todas las demás estan acabadas: a 24 de abril 1685. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 15, 118.

FIG. 13

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DIEGO LUIS ARIAS. Planta del Arsenal o Casa del General de la Armada, Alhóndiga y muelle de Cádiz, en que se distingue lo que al presente hesta acabado y sirbe de Alhóndiga con el color encarnado y lo que hesta empezado y a de serbir de Arsenal con el Color Berde, y lo que se añade se distingue con el color pajizo, 1716. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.

Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 05, 190.

FIG. 14

Cristóbal Lechuga also recommended floor plan and mock-up-based representation: «Once the dimensions and elements of a fort are known, first the constituent bastions, traverses and platforms must be drawn on paper to scale to ensure no error is made and taking the time needed to raise the lines in relief with wood, white stone, papier mâché or some other material so that all it is to contain can be clearly distinguished»58.

Mock-ups were not only a design tool and construction guide, but also collected by monarchs as an instrument for military strategy. Records have been preserved of the Habsburg dynasty’s collection, presumably stored in a separate room in their fortress at Madrid and possibly lost when it was destroyed by fire.

Interest in mock-ups declined substantially after the mid-seventeenth century, when fortifications were designed on paper, using geometry to represent dihedral projections and standardising representation. This process was furthered by the proliferation of treatises and drawing methods using geometric rules, along with the deployment of printing and engraving to reproduce designs.

Mock-ups continued to be used, but more for educational purposes or as an expression of royal power than as a tool for design formulation and implementation. A 1711 inventory of royal collections mentioned a sumptuous ebony and gold-plated silver mockup known as Estudio de fortificación. In Charles III’s reign orders were issued to build

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Planos, perfiles y elevaciones del Baluarte de Sn Ambrosio en el Castillo de Cardona, en donde esta señalado el Baluarte existente, y como conviene hacer su restablecimiento, 1721. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 10, 029.

FIG. 15

«bas-reliefs of all the places and fortifications in Spain and their adjacent defensive structures». These items, once kept in a «models room» in Kingdom Hall at Buen Retiro Palace, and others such as the collection purchased from Montalembert’s widow, were ultimately moved to the Royal Military Museum in 180359.

As the use of mock-ups waned, drafting rules underwent fuller development. Beginning in the mid-seventeenth century, existing works were graphically separated from new design with the use of different colours, although in the absence of standardised rules they had to be defined in the legend [FIGS. 13-18]. Contemporary drawings seldom depicted the area or terrain surrounding works.

France was the first country to regulate a drawing code. «The lack of convention in military engineers’ cartography in the sixteen seventies led Vauban to standardise rules for drawing and cartographic representation so that every engineer would use the same graphic language, immediately understandable by all others»60. Such standardisation was visible in subsequent cartographic practice and defended in treatises such as L’Art de laver ou la nouvelle manière de peintre sur le papier suivant le Coloris des Desseins qu’on envoie à la Cour61, by Henri Gautier and the anonymous L’Art de Dessiner proprement les Plans/Profils, Elévations Géométrales & Perspectives, soit d’Architecture militaire ou Civile62 published in Paris in 1697.

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FIG. 16 JUAN DE LAFERIÉRE y VALENTÍN. Ferrol. Plano y Perfiles del Castillo de la Palma y de las Baterías que en él se executen, en el cual se demuestra lo que se halla echo de estas baterías (y es lo lavado de colorado) y lo que queda por hacer (y es lo lavado de amarillo), 1731. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 15, 076.

In Spain standardised representation was propagated primarily by the academies. The Royal Ordinance and Code of 22 July 1739 for teaching mathematics at the Barcelona Academy, for instance, provided that students would be «taught to draft Military Buildings clearly and apply colours as in practice to distinguish their parts, distribution and decorative ornaments, to which purpose the respective drawings, outlines and Elevation views will be drawn»63.

An analysis of colour in fortification drawings shows that usage was not standardised until well into the eighteenth century; until then, colours were chosen individually in each case and explained in the legend. The design for new elements might be red or green and the existing structures yellow. Materials, in turn, might also be symbolised with colours, using yellow for earth, for instance. This chromatic ambiguity gradually disappeared as the academies propagated the French representational code that prevailed after the War of Succession, although some instances of the non-uniform use of colour persisted.

Rules for representation and colour coding were included at the end of Manuel Centurión’s treatise: India ink for all except masonry lines, which would be drawn in red;

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 17 LORENZO DE SOLÍS. Ceuta. Plano en grande del proyecto de Fuente Cavallos demostrando el estado de la obra, lo fundado y ejecutado dado de color encarnado y lo por hacer de color amarillo, 1743. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 19, 182.

yellow was for design, green for plant cover, the colour of water for ditches, brown for earth and wood, and blue for iron64. This author also called for denoting ruins with dotted lines, red for masonry works and India ink for all else. Lastly, the light source for all planes was the upper left angle of the paper, creating shadows downward and to the right65.

Vicente Ferraz added an appendix to his Tratado de Castrametación o Arte de Campar with a detailed description of the colours to be used in military cartography: brown India ink for mountains, cliffs and similar, black India ink for rammed earth works, red for masonry, yellow for design, dotted lines for underground works and vaults, and washed dotted lines for ruins66. He also described how to depict the surrounds and the roughness of the natural terrain.

The content of these rules has reached today’s generations in the form of manuscripts: one custodied by the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano67, another written by a Saboya Regiment cadet named José Fernández de Olarte, kept at the National Library68 and a third published in the nineteenth century by Carmen Hidalgo69.

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IGNACIO SALA. Cádiz. Plano y Perfiles que demuestran el estado en que se hallan las fortificaciones del frente de tierra de Cádiz, el día primero de enero de 1747. Todo lo lavado de amarillo demuestra la porción de obra hecha durante el año 1746. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 53, 030.

FIG. 18

With the standardised code then in place, eighteenth-century fortification drawings were the result of the systematic application of a graphic technique developed over the preceding two hundred years. The depictions were accurate, existing structures were clearly distinguished from new designs and the surrounding terrain was consistently represented in detail. Colour codes no longer had to be explained in the legend, for they followed a universal standard, and fortification drawings ultimately afforded a detailed topographic description of the area surrounding the works.

CONCLUSIONS

This study of drawing instruments, design procedures and representational systems sheds light on military architects’ and engineers’ approach to design fortification. The initial straightedge, angle square and compass were supplemented in the seventeenth century with more complex instruments, particularly the proportional compass.

That concurred with the development of increasingly sophisticated fortification layout and engineering. The proportional system of calculating plan views used in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was replaced in the mid-eighteen hundreds by angle-based engineering. The last quarter century witnessed the introduction of the determinate system, which nearly always called for scaled adaptations and hence the imperative use of the proportional compass.

Representation underwent parallel change. Early seventeenth-century plan view and mock-up representation gave way to ever more accurate and geometrically determinate

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

drafting, which in the latter years of the century started to be standardised and in the eighteenth century to include the immediate and wider surrounds.

This depiction of the environs concurred with the enlargement of fortifications with expanded outworks and design systems that were no longer bounded by geometry but flowed from the discretional application of fortification maxims or rules.

Drawing instruments also evolved. The use of levels and altazimuths predominated in the eighteenth century at the expense of proportional compasses, as engineering hewed ever more closely to the actual lay of the land where the fortification was to be built.

The study of the instruments, design methods and depiction systems therefore confirms the premise that fortification design began as an inductive process in the sixteenth century, changed with the application of pre-determined geometric models in the Baroque period and evolved in the eighteenth century to a regulated inductive exercise in which these structures were conceived for the terrain.

DRAWING INSTRUMENTS, ENGINEERING METHODS AND REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS

39

NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

40

Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura. Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Avenida Juan de Herrera, 4. 28040 Madrid. muozcosme@arquired.es AVERLINO «FILARETE», ca 1465 (1990), p. 363.

ALBERTI, 1485, pp. 63, 64, 74, 114, 297, 316.

BARTOLI, 1564.

GARCÍA DE CÉSPEDES, 1606.

FLUDD, 1617.

DE ROJAS, 1598. Part two, Chapter XXII. LECHUGA, 1611, pp. 244-246.

SAN NICOLÁS, 1639, fols. 126 and 127; and Part two, 1667, pp. 200-205.

ENRÍQUEZ DE VILLEGAS, 1651, pp. 84-85.

ZEPEDA Y ADRADA, 1669.

NAVARRO LOIDI, 2005, p. 89.

ANONYMOUS, undated; BULLET, 1701; DE CASTRO Y ASCÁRRAGA, 1758.

PÉREZ DE XEA, 1632, pages 16 and 17.

FIRRUFINO, 1648, fols. 8-10.

MUT, 1664, p. 8.

Ibídem, pp. 63-64 and 136-137.

ZARAGOZA, 1675.

FERNÁNDEZ DE MEDRANO, 1708, pp. 37-38 and 414.

Ibídem, pp. 439-442.

ROYAL ORDINANCE AND CODE OF 22 JULY 1739.

art. 55.

Cited by CAPEL, SÁNCHEZ and MONCADA, 1988, p. 361.

MULLER, 1769, pp. 245-267.

PLO Y CAMÍN, 1767, pp. 175-236 and 531-559.

DE ROJAS, 1598. fols. 33-34.

Ibídem, fols. 40-44.

Ibídem, fols. 37 and 39.

GONZÁLEZ DE MEDINA BARBA, 1599, p. 22.

Ibídem, p. 22.

Ibídem, p. 24.

LECHUGA, 1611, p. 140.

SANTANS Y TAPIA, 1644.

ENRÍQUEZ DE VILLEGAS, 1651, pp. 136-137.

MUT, 1664.

VILLE, 1629, pp. 17 and 20.

ZEPEDA Y ADRADA, 1669, pp. 47-48.

FOLCH DE CARDONA, 1681, pp. 12 and 13.

Ibídem, p. 21.

ZARAGOZA, 1675, pp. 30-35.

Ibídem, p. 54.

Ibídem, p. 85.

ANONYMOUS, 1693, Treatise XI, pp. 124-133.

Ibídem, pp. 8-9.

PRÓSPERI, 1744, p. 9.

Ibídem, pp. 13-20.

Ibídem, p. 120.

Ibídem, pp. 59-75.

CASSANI, 1704, pp. 9-15.

Ibídem, pp. 17 and 24.

Ibídem, pp. 35-38.

TOSCA, 1757, Treatise XVI, p. 256.

LUCUZE, 1772, pp. 22-23 and 51-52.

CENTURIÓN GUERRERO DE TORRES, 1757, pp. 78-87.

Ibídem, pp. 102-104.

CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1998, p. 134.

ANTONELLI, 1560, p. 10.

LECHUGA, 1611, pp. 242-243.

Ibídem, pp. 71-74.

WARMOES, 2008, p. 56.

GAUTIER, 1687.

ROYAL ORDINANCE OF 29 DECEMBER 1751,

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

62. ANONYMOUS, 1697.

63. ROYAL ORDINANCE AND CODE OF 22 JULY 1739, Art. 14.

64. CENTURIÓN GUERRERO DE TORRES, 1757, pp. 286-287.

65. Ibídem, p. 287.

66. FERRAZ, 1800, pp. 480-481.

67. ANONYMOUS, ca 1770. cited by GIMÉNEZ PRADES, SAN ANDRÉS MOYA and DE LA ROJA DE LA ROJA, 2009, p. 143.

68. FERNÁNDEZ DE OLARTE, 1776.

69. HIDALGO BRINQUIS, 1978, pp. 225-230.

DRAWING INSTRUMENTS, ENGINEERING METHODS AND REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS

41

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chitecture Militaire ou Civile, avec tous les secrets les plus rares pour faire les couleurs avec lesquelles les Ingenieurs represent les divers materiaux d’une Plaçe. Et la manière de s’en servir dans les veuês des Sieges, Campemens, & autres morceaux de Paysage, Paris, Christophe Ballard.

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(ca. 1770), Arquitectura Militar i Civil, manuscript kept in Fundación Lázaro Galdiano (nº 15010).

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CÁMARA, A. (2006), «Medir para el rasguño y dibujar para el atlas. Los ingenieros mayores de Felipe III», in España

en el Mediterráneo. La construcción del espacio, Madrid, Ministerio de Fomento, CEDEX-CEHOPU, pp. 68-77.

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stitucional de los ingenieros militares en el siglo XVIII, Madrid, Serbal / CSIC. CASSANI, J.

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CASTRO Y ASCÁRRAGA, P. DE (1758), Construcción y uso del compás de proporción, Madrid, Imp. de Don Gabriel Ramírez.

CENTURIÓN GUERRERO DE TORRES, M. DÍAZ MORENO, F.

(1757), Ciencia de Militares, Cadiz, Manuel Espinosa de los Monteros.

(2005), «Don Diego Enríquez de Villegas en el solar de Marte. Rasguear con la espada en el siglo

XVII», Anales de Historia del Arte, nº 15.

ENRÍQUEZ DE VILLEGAS, D.

(1651), Academia de fortificación de plazas y nuevo modo de fortificar una Plaza Real,

Madrid, Alonso de Paredes.

ERRARD DE BAR-LE-DUC, J.

(1594), La Fortification démontrée et réduite en art.

FERNÁNDEZ DE MEDRANO, S. (1708), El arquitecto perfecto en el arte militar, Antwerp, Henrico and Cornelio Verdussen.

FERNÁNDEZ DE OLARTE, J. (1776), Apuntes sobre dibujo y arquitectura, Manuscrito, Biblioteca Nacional de España,

Mss/13694.

FERRAZ, V.

(1800), Tratado de castrametación o Arte de campar, dispuesto para el uso de las Reales escuelas Militares,

del cargo del Real Cuerpo de Ingenieros, Madrid, Imprenta Real.

FIRRUFINO, J. C.

(1648), El perfecto artillero. Theórica y práctica, Madrid, Juan Martín del Barrio.

FLUDD, R. (1617), Utriusque Cosmi Maioris scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica atque Technica Historia, Frank-

furt, Herederos de Johann Theodor de Bry. FOLCH DE CARDONA, P. A. R. GARCÍA DE CÉSPEDES, A.

(1681), Geometría Militar, Naples, Imprenta Real de Egidio Longo.

(1606), Libro de instrumentos nuevos de geometría, muy necesarios para medir distancias y

alturas sin que intervengan números, como se demuestra en la práctica, Madrid, Juan de la Cuesta.

GAUTIER, H.

(1687), L’art de laver ou la nouvelle maniere de peindre sur le papier, suivant le Coloris des Desseins

qu’on envoye à la Cour, Lyon, Thomas Almaury.

GIMÉNEZ PRADES, M., SAN ANDRÉS MOYA, M.

and DE LA ROJA DE LA ROJA, J.M. (2009), «El color y su significado en

los documentos cartográficos del Cuerpo de Ingenieros Militares del siglo XVIII, GE-Conservación, nº 0.

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GONZÁLEZ DE MEDINA BARBA, D. HIDALGO BRINQUIS, C.

(1599), Examen de fortificación, Madrid, Imprenta del Licenciado Varez.

(1978), «Hallazgo de un breve tratado del siglo XIX con recetas para barnizar papel y una

descripción detallada de los materiales usados para el diseño y coloración de los planos», in Actas II Congreso de Conservación de Bienes culturales, Teruel.

LECHUGA, C. (1611), Discurso del capitán Cristóbal Lechuga en que trata de la artillería y de todo lo necesario a ella,

Milan, Royal and Ducal Palace, Marco Tulio Malatesta.

LUCUZE, P. DE MULLER, J.

(1772), Tratado de fortificación, Barcelona, Thomas Piferrer.

(1769), Tratado de fortificación o Arte de construir los Edificios Militares y Civiles, (first published in

English in 1756), translated by Miguel Sánchez Taramas, Barcelona, Thomas Piferrer.

MUT, V.

(1664), Arquitectura militar. Primera parte. De las fortificaciones regulares y irregulares, por don Vicente

Mut, sargento mayor, ingeniero y cronista mayor del Reino de Mallorca, Mallorca, Imprenta de Francisco Oliver.

NAVARRO BROTONS, V. NAVARRO LOIDI, J.

(1979), «Física y Astronomía modernas en la obra de Vicente Mut», Llull, vol. 2, december.

(2005), «El compás de proporción, compás geométrico y militar o pantómetra», in Actes sobre la

II Jornada sobre la Història de la Ciència i l’Ensenyament, Barcelona.

PÉREZ DE XEA, M. PLO Y CAMÍN, A.

(1632), Preceptos militares. Orden y formación de escuadrones.

(1767), El Arquitecto práctico civil, militar y agrimensor, Madrid, Imprenta de Pantaleón Aznar.

POLINAIRE, ABBÉ

(s. f.), Usage du compas de proportion, transcrit desus un ms. de Mr. L’Abbé Polinaire, Biblioteca

Nacional de España, Mss/9792 and 9793.

PRÓSPERI, F.

(1744), La Gran Defensa. Nuevo Méthodo de Fortificación, dividido en tres Órdenes, s.e.

Real Ordenanza de 29 de diciembre de 1751, para la subsistencia, régimen y enseñanza de la Real Academia Militar de Matemáticas, establecida en Barcelona, y las particulares de Ceuta y Orán, unas y otras al cargo y dirección del Cuerpo de Ingenieros, para la enseñanza de Oficiales y Cadetes del Exército.

Real Ordenanza e Instrucción de 22 de Julio de 1739 para la enseñanza de las Mathemáticas en la Real y Militar Academia que se ha establecido en Barcelona, y las que en adelante se formaren, en que se declara el pié sobre que deberán subsistir, lo que se ha de enseñar en ellas, las partes que han de concurrir en los sugetos para ser admitidos, y los premios y ascensos con que se les remunerará à los que se distinguieren por su aplicación.

ROJAS, C. DE

(1598), Teórica y práctica de fortificación, conforme las medidas y defensas destos tiempos, repartida en

tres partes, Madrid, Luis Sánchez.

SAN NICOLÁS, L. DE (1639), SANTANS Y TAPIA, J.

Arte y uso de la Arquitectura, second part (1667), Madrid.

(1644), Tratado de fortificación militar destos tiempos, breve e inteligible, Brussels, Guilielmo

Scheybels.

TORRE ECHÁVARRI, J. I. DE LA (2014), «Del secreto de Estado a la didáctica militar. La fabricación y el coleccionismo

de modelos y maquetas militares en España», in M. I. HERRÁEZ (coord.), Modelos y maquetas: la vida a escala, Madrid, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.

TOSCA, T. V.

(1757), Compendio Mathematico, Valencia, Imprenta de Joseph García.

VILLE, A. DE (1629), WARMOES, I.

Les fortifications du chevalier Antoine de Ville. Lyon, Irenée Barlet.

(2008), «La rationalisation de la production cartographique à grande échelle au temps de Vauban»,

Le Monde des cartes, nº 195.

ZARAGOZA, J.

(1675), Fábrica y uso de varios instrumentos matemáticos con que sirvió al rey N. S. D. Carlos Segundo

en el día de sus catorce años el excelentísimo señor D. Juan Francisco de la Cerda, Duque de Medinaceli, Segorbe, Cardona y Alcalá, Sumiller de Corps de su Majestad, Madrid, Antonio Francisco de Zafra.

ZEPEDA Y ADRADA, A. DE (1669), Epítome de la fortificación moderna, así en lo regular como en lo irregular, reducida

a la regla y al compás, por diversos modos, y los más fáciles para mover la tierra, Brussels, Francisco Foppens.

Back to Contents

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43

2 From Stonecutting to Descriptive Geometry.

Orthographic Projection and Military Engineering from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment JOSÉ CALVO LÓPEZ1 Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena. Escuela de Arquitectura y Edificación Translation: JOSÉ CALVO LÓPEZ

ABSTRACT

Military engineering treatises and the curricula of such institutions as the Academy of Barcelona, the École Royale du Génie de Mézières and the École Polythecnique stress the role of art du trait or stereotomy, a graphical method for the formal control of ashlar masonry, based in double or multiple orthogonal projection. In the years of the French Revolution, such procedures morphed into Descriptive Geometry, a science that deals with a wide range of geometric problems, both practical and theoretical.

This chapter includes a synchronic presentation of these practices and a diachronic survey of its evolution from the Late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, finishing with a discussion of the relevance of this field in treatises and didactic practice. Rather than its use in such military construction members as rere-arches, skew arches or stairways, the reason for the importance granted to stereotomy in military construction is to be found in its role in the education of the spatial vision of the engineer.

KEYWORDS

Engineering, fortification, stonecutting, masonry, stereotomy, drawing, projection, orthographic.

45

STONECUTTING TRACINGS

Cristóbal de Rojas included ten pages on stonecutting tracings in his Teórica y práctica de fortificación, the main treatise on military engineering of the Spanish Renaissance.

These tracings are prepared in order to control the execution of such architectural members as arches, vaults or stairs, using templates taken from full-size drawings [FIGS. 1 and 2].

Rojas’ treatise is the second printed text in Europe dealing with this subject, preceded only by the Premier Tome de l’architecture by Philibert de l’Orme, which opens a long list of books on stonecutting that reaches the twentieth century, as we shall see.

The subject may seem elementary at first sight. It is an application of drawing in plan and elevation, which was explained in the booklets by Mathes Roriczer or the well-known letter by Rafaello and Baldassare Castiglione to Leon X2. However, the execution of stonecutting pieces goes further that simple orthogonal projection. First, once their construction is finished, the elevations of Rafaello and Castiglione can be understood as autonomous documents, independent from the plan. By contrast, stonecutting tracings usually show the plan and the elevation tightly interconnected, since both are necessary in order to understand the complex geometry of the voussouirs of these members.

FIG. 1

CRISTÓBAL DE ROJAS. Skew

práctica de fortificación, 1598.

46

arches. In Teórica y

FIG. 2 ABRAHAM BOSSE, La pratique du trait a preuves de Mr. Desargues ... pour la coupe des pierres en l’Architecture…, 1643.

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Besides, when the stonemason uses the squaring method, known as équarrisement or labra por robos, starting from an enclosing block and taking away wedges in order to reach the final shape of the voussoir [FIG. 3], a tracing in double orthogonal projection may be sufficient; some treatises and manuscripts add a rectangle representing the initial block, but this is not strictly necessary and probably was skipped in actual practice3.

However, this method brings about a great loss of labour and material; most writers suggest the systematic use of templates [FIG. 4] with the shape of voussoir faces in true form4.

Spanish texts dub this method as labra por plantas, that is, ‘dressing by templates’; however, this umbrella concept encloses a number of variants. Intrados faces of arches are frequently dressed using templates whose edges represent two consecutive intrados joints and the chords of the face arches that connect them. Such templates are meant to be placed on a planar surface, and thus they can be materialised in wood. As a consequence, the templates do not represent the actual intrados surface, but rather a polyhedral surface inscribed in the interior of the arch. The geometrical construction of these templates is solved usually employing rotations about the intrados joints, known as rabattements in nineteenth century descriptive geometry; triangulations are used in some complex problems5.

This method can be applied to hemispherical domes, and in fact a number of writers suggest their use when dealing with oval vaults; however, treatises explain a different method for the dressing of domes and sail vaults. A number of cones, rather

FIG. 3 CALVO.

Dressing a voussoir by squaring. Drawing by JOSÉ

FIG. 4

Dressing a voussoir by templates. Drawing by

JOSÉ CALVO.

FROM STONECUTTING TO DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY

47

than a polyhedral surface, are inscribed in the interior of the hemisphere, so that each cone passes through two consecutive bed joints [FIG. 5]. These cones offer two advantages: they furnish a fair approximation to the spherical intrados surface, and can be developed using the simple method that was taught at elementary schools a few decades ago, in contrast with the spherical surface, which is non-developable.

Once the templates have been constructed, the stonemason should dress a portion of a spherical surface, using a typical stonemason’s instrument, a curved-edge ruler, known as cercha or cerce; since the sphere has the same curvature in all directions, the sphericity of the surface can be controlled rotating the cerce around its axis [FIG. 6].

Next, the stonemason should apply the template to the spherical surface, maFIG. 5 FRANÇOIS DERAND. Templates for hemispherical and oval domes. In L’architecture des voûtes …, 1643. terialising its conical shape, in order to mark its shape on the stone surface with a pointer, including two bed joints and two joints between voussoirs in the same course. Since this template represents a conical surface, it cannot be materialised in wood; Josep Gelabert suggests the use of paper or cardboard, cloth, or other materials6. This idea is applied gradually to arches, in particular the ones in curved walls, where rigid templates are not very useful when controlling the edge between the intrados surface and the faces of the arch; by contrast, flexible templates [FIG. 7] applied to the intrados surface allow precise control of these warped curves7.

FIG. 6

AMEDÉE-FRANÇOIS FRÉZIER. Using the truss when

dressing spherical surfaces.

In La théorie et la pratique de la coupe des pierres … ou traité de stéréotomie …, 1737-1739.

48

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Although treatises explain the squaring and templates methods separately, in actual practice both may be used at the same time [FIG. 8]. In a number of complex pieces, the stonemason proceeds from the initial box-like enclosing block to an intermediate volume dressed using auxiliary templates; then, wedges are taken from the intermediate solid in order to arrive at the final shape of the voussoir. Thus, the templates used in this method do not represent the faces of the voussoir, but rather those of the intermediate volume; this operation is known in masons’ speech as plantar de cuadrado, while the use of ordinary templates is dubbed as plantar al justo. In other cases, voussoirs are dressed by squaring, but the mason determines also the angle between intrados and face joints, which are transferred to the stone by FIG. 7 FRANÇOIS DERAND. Templates for the dressing of voussoirs in an arch opened in a curved wall. In L’architecture means of a typical masons’ protractor des voûtes …, 1643. with two articulated arms, known as sauterelle or saltarregla8.

Some details in Renaissance stonecutting texts hint that these geometrical operations were performed usually not in ordinary drawings, but rather in full-size tracings executed in floors or walls. When dealing with the Vitruvian concept of area, Hernán Ruiz men-

FIG. 8 AMEDÉEFRANÇOIS FRÉZIER. Dress-

ing a voussoir by demi-équarrissement. In La théorie et la pratique de la coupe des pierres … ou traité de stéréotomie …, 1737-1739.

FROM STONECUTTING TO DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY

49

FIG. 9 Full-size tracing for an arch in the fortress of San Damián in Ribadeo, 1744.

Drawing by MIGUEL TAÍN.

tions «un planiz aparejado para delinear y montear»; this expression can be loosely translated as «a flat surface prepared in order to delineate and draw», while Martínez de Aranda constructs a series of parallels starting from an auxiliary orthogonal, and otherwise unnecessary, line called juzgo9. Only in the eighteenth century Jean-Baptiste de la Rue explains this technique clearly, mentioning plans, elevations and sections «as large as the work», that supply the templates that are needed to execute a particular member10. A fair number of these full-size tracings, ranging from the Hellenistic period to the Enlightenment, have been preserved in temples, cathedrals, churches and monasteries. In some occasions, dedicated rooms, called trasurae, casas de la traza or tracing houses were set apart for this purpose. These tracings are more scarce in military constructions, maybe because their wall surfaces and floors have been renovated more frequently; however, the tracing for an arch [FIG. 9] in the fortress of San Damián de Ribadeo attests their use by engineers11.

Generally speaking, such tracings are extremely economic. Its easy to understand that to execute them on all fours or on a loose scaffolding is not easy. Stonemasons went to great lengths in order to supress any unnecessary line in the tracing, reusing plans as sections or eschewing the tracing of the extrados of arches, as in the Teórica y práctica de fortificación by Cristóbal de Rojas or the tracing for a vault in the rooftops of Seville cathedral12. This extreme austerity makes the interpretation of tracings quite difficult in some occasions, and also highlights another essential trait: these full-size drawings are introspective by nature. They are not meant to convey instructions from the designer to the actual executors, but rather to help the head stonemason to determine the real shape and size of some elements that are usually deformed in orthogonal projection, such as the shapes of voussoir faces or the angles between their edges13. In other terms, these drawings are not a means of representation in the strict sense, but rather a method for the resolution of geometrical problems.

Since full-size tracings were used as a formal control method in stonecutting, rather than scale drawings, we may surmise that they offer substantial advantages. First, they furnish a much higher precision than drawings on paper, avoiding the errors associated with scale changes in execution14. Besides, both Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón and Alonso de Vandelvira explain that some tracings may be executed exactly behind the member

50

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

being built, in order to control of the placement of voussoirs by means of a plumb line hanging from voussoir corners, that should match the intersection of the corresponding edges in the full-size drawing. A badly damaged tracing under the remarkable triple stairway in the convent of Santo Domingo de Bonaval en Santiago de Compostela [FIG. 10] confirms the use of such method in practice15.

Thus, stonemasons, architects and engineers transformed gradually an FIG. 10 Full-size tracing for the triple staircase in the convent artisanal procedure for execution conof Santo Domingo de Bonaval, Santiago de Compostela, 1695trol in a full-fledged representation 1705. Drawing by MIGUEL TAÍN. system, based on orthogonal projection but involving also methods for the solution of particular problems, such as rotations, rabattements16, developments and triangulations. Anyhow, the formation of this system was not immediate, and the leading role in this field of knowledge shifted from stonemasons and architects to clerics and military engineers, while the empirical paradigm of the first phases evolved into the conception of this discipline as an exact science; we shall deal with this evolution in the next section17.

MASONS, CLERICS AND ENGINEERS

An unknown draughtsman, dubbed as Hand IV by Barnes, interpolated some schemata in a few sheets of the portfolio of Villard de Honnecourt. Two of them have been identified by Branner, Lalbat et al. and Bechmnann as skew arches or arches in curved walls, drawn in orthogonal projection. If such hypotheses are right, the voussoirs are to be dressed by squaring, maybe with the help of a sauterelle18. Later on, Mathes Roriczer’s booklets, dealing with pinnacles and gablets, do not use templates in the sense of the preceding section. However, they furnish valuable information on the evolution of orthogonal projection, explaining that the stonemason is to construct an elevation around a symmetry axis, tracing orthogonals to the axis that stand for horizontal planes. Next, the mason should bring horizontal measures from the plan to these horizontal lines, guaranteeing the coherence between plan and elevation. Such technique anticipates the juzgo of Martínez de Aranda, an auxiliary orthogonal line that eases the tracing of parallels19.

Neither Villard and Hand IV nor Roriczer include the quintessential element in Gothic construction, the ribbed vault. This absence is understandable in Villard’s portfolio, since quadripartite vaults with a square or rectangular plan can be controlled without elaborate tracings. At the other end of the scale, the typical vaults in Roriczer’s Germany are the complex Netzgewölbe, where the tracing of ribs is controlled through the Prinzipalbogen

FROM STONECUTTING TO DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY

51

Full-size tracing of the vault in the sacristy of the cathedral of Murcia, 1525. Drawing by MIGUEL ÁNGEL ALONSO and JOSÉ FIG. 11

CALVO.

method, using an auxiliary arch with constant curvature that gives the height of each boss of the vault, although with some inconsistencies20.

By contrast, the most representative vault in sixteenth century Spanish Gothic architecture is the tierceron vault, explained in the Libro de Arquitectura by Hernán Ruiz. The problem posed by these kind of vaults stands on middle ground: they are simpler than Netzgewölbe, but more complex than ordinary quadripartite vaults. In each quarter of the vault, tiercerons and liernes should meet in space in a secondary boss; if not, the tiercerons would pass over the liernes, or the other way around, with catastrophic results.

In order to tackle this problem, Hernán Ruiz draws the directrixes of wall arches, diagonal ribs, tiercerons and liernes in true size, starting always from the springers; the result is a deconstructed elevation, so to speak. The wall arch is placed in its natural position, while the lierne is projected on the vertical wall plane, and the diagonal ribs and tiercerons are rotated around the vertical axis that passes through the springer21.

Some decades later, Martínez de Aranda instructs the reader to rotate an intrados joint around a horizontal axis, in order to determine graphically the angle between this joint and a face joint. Transferring this angular measure to the saltarregla, he can improve the control of the dressing process by the squaring method. When using plantas al justo, that is, full templates, the problem involves the rotation of the entire template, a method known in nineteenth century Descriptive Geometry treatises as rabattement. When the intrados joint is orthogonal to the face arch, the mason can solve the problem easily, transferring the distance between two consecutive intrados joints, taken from the elevation, to the template22. By contrast, when the intrados joint is oblique, the problem is not so simple. Philibert de L’Orme explanation is quite obscure; Vandelvira eschews rotations and constructs the templates using triangulations, but his method is recursive, tiresome and prone to the accumulation of errors. Only in the last years of the sixteenth century Cristóbal de Rojas and Ginés Martínez de Aranda solve the problem using rabattements23.

As for flexible templates for spherical or torus surfaces, they are completely lacking in the early sixteenth century stonecutting tracings in Murcia cathedral [FIG. 11]; however, they appear in a tracing in the rooftops in Seville cathedral, dating from 1543. They are

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

explained in Philibert de L’Orme’s treatise, again in a rather confuse way. Vandelvira’s and Alonso de Guardia’s manuscript are more clear, in particular the later, closer to actual workshop practice24.

In any case, along the sixteenth century this subject is under the command of stonemasons and architects, or more precisely, a peculiar group between both professions. In the Escorial, the head stonemasons or aparejadores de cantería execute tracings and supply templates to the contractors. This practice does not exclude the interest of architects in this matter; Alonso de Vandelvira lent a copy of his manuscript to Juan de Valencia; after the death of the latter, he supposed it was in the hands of Juan de Herrera, Francisco de Mora or Juan de Vega25.

Anyhow, only the smartest masons, the ones that can read and write and boast titles of architect or engineer, as Vandelvira, Cristóbal de Rojas or Ginés Martínez de Aranda, prepare clearly structured stonecutting texts26. Only the Teórica y práctica de fortificación,

by Rojas, which includes no more than ten pages on stonecutting, reached the presses.

However, Fray Laurencio de San Nicolás mentions attempts to publish some manuscripts in this field; quite probably he was thinking about Vandelvira, which is quoted in the same volume. The introduction «To the reader» in Aranda’s manuscript points in the same direction27. All three authors are connected with military engineering, as De L’Orme, since Aranda wrote reports about fortifications in Alcalá la Real and was entrusted with «the fortresses of the Miter» when conferred the post of Master Mason of the Archbishopric of Santiago de Compostela, while Alonso de Vandelvira was named as Master Mason of the City of Cádiz on the grounds of an enthusiastic recommendation

by Cristóbal de Rojas28.

The borderline position of this group of professionals did not make their life easy. In 1596, Pedro de Velasco tried to exclude Rojas from the decisions about fortification arguing that he was just a stonemason; however, in 1609, Rojas reversed the argument showing with pride his building experience, which granted him authority to give his opinion in constructive matters29. This brings to mind the biography of Philibert de L’Orme, who withstood jokes by Ronsard and physical attacks by ordinary masons; later on, he remarked that the architect should know the masons’ lore in order to «dextrement commander», that is, to command adroitly. Otherwise the architect would be at the orders of the workmen, which would be tantamount to placing the cart before the horses30.

Catherine Wilkinson places this group of professionals, represented by De L’Orme, against the «Central Italian model of the arts» that allows figurative artists to act as architects31.

An echo of these debates seems to appear in the first paragraphs of Rojas’ treatise, when he states that «The soldier or engineer that wants to deal perfectly with fortification should know three things … to have a sound knowledge of [Geometry] … the second is arithmetic … the third and most important is to know how to survey the place where the fortress is to be built … it is quite difficult to master this lore by an engineer, if he has not been involved in war in some occasion, and close to a great soldier». This empirical approach appears also in the field of stone construction, in particular through the use of models: «I will not put in writing the explanation of stonecutting in arches … since this depends completely on experience … and you cannot know how to build an arch, unless

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53

you have prepared models in clay or plaster … in my youth I prepared many models of different vaults».

Martínez de Aranda holds similar positions: «the lineaments of stonecutting … cannot be mastered except by those that have started to trace and prepare models in their youth», adding that «these artisans even when they promise prudence, if they are not rich, well born and well spoken, are not granted authority according to their study of their subjects so that the reader believes that they know what they are practising»32.

That is, a new form of knowledge is appearing, using classical science in order to solve practical problems, in contrast with Antique and Mediaeval science, that usually do not seek their application to practical problems33. This program, favoured by the Spanish crown in the last decades of the sixteenth century, will be developed slowly; the cycle will be closed not in Spain, but rather in FIG. 12 ABRAHAM BOSSE, La pratique du trait a preuves de Mr. Desargues ... pour la coupe des pierres en l’Architecture…, 1643.

Continental Europe.

Anyhow, the position of ordinary stonemasons, the «medianos ingenios» or «middle intellects» of Martinez de Aranda, is not merely passive. Other texts, such as Ms. 12.686 in the National Library in Madrid, connected with the circle of Francisco de Luna, Pedro de Albiz and Juanes de Andute, or the already mentioned one by Alonso de Guardia, are personal notebooks, chaotic in comparison with the almost academic manuals of Vandelvira or Guardia. However, the lack of didactic intentions in Guardia or Ms. 12.686 makes them nearer to everyday practice; while Vandelvira and Aranda explain in great detail the geometrical construction of tracings, Guardia offers precious details about the dressing process34.

In France, the publication of Philibert De L’Orme’s treatise brings about a different situation. Although it is not a specialised stonecutting manual, but a general architectural treatise, it includes two full books, about 160 pages, to stonecutting; this allows a comprehensive and detailed approach to our subject, in contrast with Rojas35. As a consequence, later manuscripts such as those by Jean Chéreau36, follow De L’Orme closely, in contrast with freer Spanish texts. Besides, no further book on this matter is printed until the mid-seventeenth century; maybe potential writers thought that nothing could be added to Philibert’s explanation of the subject.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

This silence was broken in 1640, when Girard Desargues, a bourgeois from Lyons, amateur architect and precursor of Projective Geometry, published a leaflet offering a general method for the resolution of all stonecutting problems [FIG. 12], although he explained only its application to skew arches, sloping vaults and arches opened in sloping walls37. The masons of Paris responded violently against this interference from a stranger to the craft; Jacques Curabelle, the best stonecutter of the period, published pamphlets with such Baroque titles as Foiblesse pitoyable du sr G. Desargues employée contre l’examen fait de ses oeuures38. The confrontation brought about a remarkable contest: two teams of stonemasons, directed by Desargues and Curabelle, were to build arches according to the methods of their leaders. The winners were to receive a substantial prize of one hundred pistoles39.

At the end the competition did not take place, since the contestants did not agree in the rules or the jury. Desargues argued with scorn that geometricians should not be judged by masons; quite to the contrary, the geometricians are the masters and the masons the disciples. However, this failed duel indicates a change of paradigm: for Desargues the criterion of the validity of stonecutting methods does not lie in the apparent perfection of the final built piece, but rather in the mathematical correction of the methods used in its execution.

The consequences of this paradigm shift were felt slowly, although gradually. The confrontation led to the appearance of three stonecutting treatises in a few years. Mathurin Jousse, an ironsmith that had published previously manuals on metalwork and carpentry, completed his series with Le secret d’architecture, the first book dedicated in its entirety to stonecutting, illustrated with woodcuts and showing the traditional techniques of the craft. The Jesuit François Derand, well connected with the scientific circles of the period, published L’architecture des voûtes, with copper engravings and a more formal tone. A few years later Abraham Bosse, engraver and controversial professor of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, published a quite detailed exposition of Desargues’ method40.

The presence of Derand among stonecutting writers may seem a bit shocking, but he was preceded by the Augustine Recollect friar Laurencio de San Nicolás, who devoted to stonecutting a few chapters of the first volume of Arte y uso de arquitectura, published in 1639. From this moment on, the Theatine Guarino Guarini, the Oratorian Tomás Vicente Tosca, the Cistercian Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz or another Jesuit, Charles Milliet-Deschalles, dealt with the subject41. This means that the old lore of the masons was being absorbed by learned science; at the end of the seventeenth century, it had reached the status of an application of mathematics, included in Cursus seu mundus mathematicus

by Deschalles or Compendio Matemático by Tosca; of course, we may assume that the former was not widely read by stonemasons.

By contrast, Tosca played a significant role in the education of military engineers in the first half of the eighteenth century; other details, such as the purchase of models of «conical pyramids» and saltarreglas in the Engineers’ Academy in Barcelona, confirm that stonecutting technique was taught in Spanish military schools in the period, as we shall see for their French counterparts42. Another sign of the interest of engineers on this subject is the longest treatise on stonecutting ever published, La théorie et la pratique de la coupe des pierres et des bois pour la construction des voutes … ou traité de stéréotomie …

by Amedée-François Frézier43, an engineer working in the fortifications of Britanny, as Cristóbal de Rojas had done in the sixteenth century.

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JEAN-BAPTISTE DE LA RUE. Templates, voussoirs and interior space in an arch opened in a curved wall. In Traité de la coupe des pierres, 1728.

FIG. 13

AMEDÉE-FRANÇOIS FRÉZIER. Arches opened in curved walls. In La théorie et la pratique de la coupe des pierres … ou traité de stéréotomie …, 1737-1739.

FIG. 14

Up to a certain extent, Frézier follows Desargues’ trail; however, he presents his material in a different way. Jean-Baptiste de la Rue [FIG. 13] had included at the end of his treatise a theoretical annex, the Petit traité de stéréotomie; this last term, taken paradoxically from Curabelle, means «cuts of solids»44. Frézier, by contrast, places theoretical matters first, dealing with such issues as orthogonal projection, classification of surfaces or angular measurements in the first volume of his treatise. Only in the second and third volumes he explains actual stonecutting problems, placed under the heading of tomotechnie. In this way, the discipline is put under the rule of geometry, including demonstrations for each particular problem, in contrast with previous treatises. Frézier does not try to unify his methods as Desarges; however, he gives a clear structure to the subject, based on his classification of surfaces. All this puts him at a distance from traditional methods, explained by Jousse and Derand; as a result, he remarks systematically the «falsehood of ancient tracings», while putting forward new methods for issues that seem rather secondary to our eyes, such as the use of developable surfaces for skew arches, that leads him to a peculiar set of elliptical intrados joints45.

Frézier’s obsession with systematic methods is quite evident in a passage where he explains that stonecutters place their tracings in a strange fashion, so that the sections or elevations that should rise are tilted sideways or even placed head down [FIG. 14]. He accepts that this procedure has some advantages, since it shows clearly the connections

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

between different projections; however, the general impression given by this passage is that of an Enlightened disdain for these colourful, Baroque sets of tracings46.

These indirect proposals for the reform of stonecutting drawing were taken seriously by Gaspard Monge, instructor in Stonecutting Theory in the Engineering School at Mézierès. At the start of the French Revolution, freed from military secret, Monge explained his Method of Projections at the same time in the École Normale and the École Polythechnique, two revolutionary schools that exerted an immense influence in Continental Europe. His procedure was not restricted to stonecutting, not even to construction. Rather, he presented it FIG. 15 GASPARD MONGE. Projection planes, ground line and projections of a straight line. In Géométrie Descriptive, 1799. as a general method for spatial representation, which can be applied to all fields of the technology of the period, or even to the abstract problems of pure geometry47. In the École Normale, focused in the preparation of secondary education teachers, Monge started his course explaining that a single projection cannot specify precisely the position of a point in space. Only when adding a second projection, we can determine unambiguously this point; the passage suggests implicitly that the striking auxiliary projections used by stonecutters are unnecessary48.

However, in order to define exactly the absolute position of a point in space, a new element, lacking in stonecutting tracings or even in the careful renderings of the Méziéres school, is needed: the ground line [FIG. 15]. While double projection, as used up to this period, allows to determine the position of a point in relation to other objects, the ground line furnishes a method for computing the absolute position of a point. At the same time, it fixes in space the position of both projection planes; this allows the draughtsman to represent any plane through its intersections with the projection planes49. The use of planes is not really very useful in stonecutting tracings; up to this moment, nobody has built a plane or a straight line, but rather finite elements. Admittedly, in some problems tackled by Frézier, such as oblique trumpet squinches, the representation of planes allows the use of sophisticated methods; however, in his teaching in the École Normale Monge used planes mainly to solve abstract geometrical problems, which fit the nature of this institution50.

Anyhow, we should take into account that we know much better Monge’s lessons in the École Normale, taken in shorthand and published by his pupils as Géometrie De-

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57

scriptive, than his teaching at the École Polythechnique, where only a few sheets of students’ exercises, without ground lines, are preserved. This suggests that Monge used different approaches in the École Normale, with a strictly scientific character, and the École Polythechnique, that had and still has a technological orientation51.

Another paragraph at the start of Géométrie Descriptive is also quite significant: it states that this new science has two different goals. First, to transmit to the artistes, that is, the artisans, the shape of the pieces designed by the engineer; second, to retrieve all the verités or truths that can be deduced from the shape and the relative positions of these bodies. Following Monge’s lessons, it is easy to understand that these verités are data such as the shape of the faces of the solids, the angles between their edges or the distances between their corners, which orthogonal projections do not show in true size and form in many occasions; that was the main utility of stonecutting tracings52. In this way Monge implies a subtle inversion of the concepts used in our subject up to this moment; the introvert drawing of stonemasons, timely transferred to scientific language, comes second, while pride of place is taken by the transmission of the orders from the engineer to the executors. Anyhow, we shall deal with the reasons of this evolution, in particular with the exclusion of perspectives, both lineal and cavalier, from the education of engineers, in the next section.

THE ROLE OF STONECUTTING TRACINGS AND DOUBLE ORTHOGONAL PROJECTION IN THE EDUCATION OF MILITARY ENGINEERS

A detail in the history of the École Polythechnique shows clearly Monge’s opinion about the relative value of the systems of spatial representation. As shown by Alonso et al., from the sixteenth century on, stonecutting treatises include, in addition to orthographical projections, some linear or oblique perspectives of particularly complex pieces; in some occasions, even the space below a vault is shown as a stone construction. That is, writers consider that orthogonal projections and its auxiliary methods – rotations, developments, and the like – are quite useful for the determination of the true shapes of voussoir faces or the angles between their edges, but they do not show intuitively the volume of construction members or their parts. This mission is entrusted to cavalier or linear perspectives. However, under Monge’s direction, the sheets of the copy of De la Rue’s treatise used by the students of the École Polytechnique that included oblique perspectives were torn away. Probably Monge and his aides understood that orthogonal projections were sufficient to show the volumetric structure of these members, or maybe they were trying to put pressure on students so they could read easily plans and elevations showing complex forms53.

Anyway, some details hint that Monge was not the first one to tread that path. As mentioned by Alfonso Muñoz, both Tomás Vicente Tosca and José Zaragoza, another clergyman, assert that the engineer does not need to be proficient in perspective drawing54.

Later on, a small but precise treatise or workbook on shades and shadows was prepared in the engineering school of Mézières, with all drawings in orthographic projection and finished in taut renderings55. At first sight, the interest of engineers in shadows, while

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 16 CRISTÓBAL DE ROJAS. Plan of a

fortress showing access to the casemates.

In Teórica y práctica de fortificación, 1598.

they eschew perspective, is a bit shocking. However, on close inspection, such drawings as the one in the Mézières workbook showing a temple front in strictly frontal projection suggest that the aim of the author was to demonstrate that shadows can bring back the intuitive representation of volume that orthogonal projection lacks, in contrast with linear or cavalier perspective.

At this point, we should ask ourselves about the reason of the interest of engineers in stonecutting. Cristóbal de Rojas mentions in his Teórica y práctica de fortificación «skew arches for the passages leading to the casemates of the fort, and also splayed arches, which are very appropriate for the embrasures of the artillery ...» while stating in his Compendio y breve resolución de fortificación that «the engineer should know how to build the embrasures of fortification [...] that are called splayed in artillery [...] and especially he should know the cuts and shapes of the vaults, for any architecture». However, these explanations [FIG. 16] are scarcely convincing56. Treatises also deal with sloping arches; in particular Martinez de Aranda presents six variants: escarpment or counterscarp, and their combinations with straight plan, or two kinds of obliquity. Such arches seem to deny the military function of the wall, which does not foster the presence of openings. Notwithstanding that, some examples of these pieces can be found in Spain, for example in the wall of Saint Charles de Cadiz, the King’s Orchard in Mallorca or the wall of Charles III in Cartagena. In particular, the later includes the Puerta del Socorro, a skew arch opened in a sloping wall [FIGS. 17-19] which appears designed to justify the convoluted repertoire of Frézier or Aranda57. However, the small size of the arch suggests that it is easier to place in the voussoirs of a round arch in the wall and give them the slant required by the slope of the wall and the skew shape of the arch by means of a simple retouching, rather than addressing the complexities of the template construction methods proposed by the treatises.

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FIG. 17

Puerta del Socorro in the Wall of Charles III in Cartagena. 1783. Front view.

Admittedly, treatises also include vaults and stairs; however, in Early Modern military constructions the former are executed on many occasions in brick or concrete, while the stairs are usually relatively members, such as the straight newel helical stair, known in Spain as Caracol de husillo, or at most a member with a helical newel, known as Caracol de Mallorca. That is, the knowledge of stonecutting is useful, certainly, for the construction engineer, but does not seem to justify the importance granted by Rojas or the three volumes of Frézier’s treatise.

Now, a puzzling question surfaces: whether the interest of engineers in the geometrical problems of stone construction, shown by the presence of this matter in treatises, in the appointment of Vandelvira for the fortifications of Cádiz, in the interest of Frézier in this field or its presence in Spanish military schools, as well as in the school of Mézières and the Polytechnique, an essentially military institution, responds to a practical need or to a didactic intention. We’ve seen that military schools endeavoured to instruct the aspiring engineer on the interpretation of drawings in double projection; the intricate problems of stonecutting provided a most suitable and almost endless source of exercises in this field. All this suggests that the teaching of Stonecutting Theory in military schools focused not so much in the training of engineers for stone construction, but on the education of their spatial vision58.

In fact, we know that the teaching of Stonecutting Theory by Monge in the Mézières school included abstract topics, such as the determination of the position of a point in horizontal and vertical projection starting from the angles formed by the lines connecting

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

them to three given points. That is, the artisanal practice of stonecutting had evolved, as soon as the last decades of the Ancien RÊgime, into an abstract science, susceptible of application in any technical field. As Sakarovitch said, the stonemason works on mass, starting from a three-dimensional object, by contrast with the carpenter or the coppersmith, who work on lines or developable surfaces. This leads to a parallel between the material activity of the stonemason and the abstract position of the geometrician, shown by rich repertoire of developable and warped that can be materialised by the stonemason and their complex intersection59. On its turn, this geometrical wealth is reflected in the wide variety of graphic techniques used in stonecutting tracings: projections, developments, rabattements, rotations, changes of projection plane. Even the noFIG. 18 Puerta del Socorro in the Wall of Charles III in tion of generatrices and directrixes introCartagena. 1783. Side view. duced by Monge in his lectures at the École Normale reminds the methods of stonemasons defining a surface through channels opened by the chisel, where the ruler rests in order to materialise a ruled surface. And finally, the economy and elegance of stonecutting tracings had to be enticing to the military by force60. All this is what explains, beyond its practical application, the interest of engineers in stonecutting.

Puerta del Socorro in the Wall of Charles III in Cartagena. 1783. Top view.

FIG. 19

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NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

62

Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena. Escuela de Arquitectura y Edificación. Ps. Alfonso XIII, 50. 30203 Cartagena. jose.calvo@upct.es ROJAS, 1598; DE L’ORME, 1567; RORICZER, 1486; SANZIO and CASTIGLIONE, c. 1518.

MARTÍNEZ DE ARANDA, c. 1600, pp. 133-115; DERAND, 1643, p. 5; FRÉZIER, 1737-1739, vol. II, pp. 11-12.

DE L’ORME, 1567, 73 v; see also FRÉZIER, 1737-1739, vol. II, pp. 13-15.

MARTÍNEZ DE ARANDA, c. 1600, pp. 6-8, and many others; VANDELVIRA, c. 1580, f. 26v, 27v, and others; see also PALACIOS [1990] 2003, pp. 96-105.

GELABERT [1653] 2011, p. 130; see also RABASA, 1996, p. 429; RABASA, 2000, pp. 160-178; RABASA, 2007.

DERAND, 1643, p. 63, and others; ANONYMOUS, c. 1650, f. 16r, 18r, and others.

RABASA, 2000, pp. 152-160; CALVO, 2003; FRÉZIER, 1737-1739, vol. II, p. 39, plates 28.

RUIZ, c. 1550, f. 13r; MARTÍNEZ DE ARANDA, c. 1600, p. 16. «Montear» is a tricky word, since «montea» means both «elevation» and «full-size tracing». The construction of parallels in paper, using sliding triangles, is quite easy; by contrast, tracing parallels on floors or walls is quite difficult; see for example a construction mentioned by ROJAS, 1598, f. 7v, that may lead to important errors in actual practice.

DE LA RUE [1728] 1738, p. 1.

HASELBERGER, 1983; TAÍN, 2006, p. 3013. See a longer explanation in CALVO, 2013.

ROJAS, 1598, f. 98v. The drawing in the upper part of the sheet may suggest at first sight a peculiar arch with diminishing faces; on closer inspection, it represents a skew arch in which only the edges between faces and intrados are depicted, while the ones between face an extrados are left out.

As we shall see, in the Escorial the head stonemasons prepare templates and hand them to contractors almost everyday; only in special cases they ask the actual builders to consult full-size tracing. See BUSTAMANTE, 1994, pp. 228, 247.

As the exception that confirms the rule, a preparatory drawing for a tracing, drawn in paper and rather clumsy is analysed in ALONSO, 2009, pp. 57-60.

GIL DE HONTAÑÓN, c. 1550, ff. 24v-25v; VANDELVIRA, c. 1580, ff. 23r, 23v; TAÍN, 2006, pp. 3018-3019.

Translator’s note: Rabattement is a graphical procedure used to determine the true size and shape of planar figures through rotation of their planes around an axis, usually a horizontal one. The word is quite unusual in English, due to the cold reception of French Descriptive Geometry, associated with Napoleonic institutions, in England.

See a more detailed survey of treatises and writers in Calvo, 2009, and an explanation of the evolution of the intellectual status of the discipline in CALVO, 2011.

VILLARD, [c. 1225] 2009, f. 20r; BRANNER, 1957; BECHMANN, [1991] 1993, pp. 169-180; LALBAT et al, 1987; LALBAT et al, 1989; VILLARD, 2009, p. 130, 133. Prior to Barnes recent edition, this anonymous draughtsman was identified by Hahnloser as Magister II. RORICZER, 1486.

KOEPF, 1969, plates 288, 436; TOMLOW, 2009.

RUIZ, c. 1550, f. 46v.

DE L’ORME, 1567, f. 72 r; VANDELVIRA, c. 1580, f. 19v; ROJAS, 1596, f. 99v, upper part; MARTÍNEZ DE ARANDA, c. 1600, p. 6-8.

DE L’ORME, 1567, f. 67 v-69 r; VANDELVIRA, c. 1580, f. 27v; ROJAS, 1596, f. 99v, lower part; MARTÍNEZ DE ARANDA, c. 1600, p. 1617. See also RABASA, 1994.

CALVO, 2010, 530-533; CALVO, 2013; RUIZ DE LA ROSA and RODRÍGUEZ ESTÉVEZ, 2002; VANDELVIRA, c. 1580, 61v-62r; GUARDIA, c.

1600, 69v.

BUSTAMANTE, 1994, p. 155, 215, 227, 233, 238, 242, 244 and others for templates, baiveles and cerchas; pp. 209, 228, 247 for the tracing house and the tracings; LÓPEZ MARTÍNEZ, 1932, pp. 166-167; BANDA, 1969.

VANDELVIRA, c. 1580; ROJAS, 1596; MARTÍNEZ DE ARANDA, c. 1600.

SAN NICOLÁS, 1665, pp. 155, 217; MARTÍNEZ DE ARANDA, c. 1600, unnumbered page at the start. See also BARBÉ-COQUELIN DE LISLE, 1977, pp. 22.

GILA, 1991, pp. 275-276; FALCÓN, 1994; MARIÁTEGUI, [1880] 1985, p. 88; CÁMARA, 1981.

MARIÁTEGUI, [1880] 1985, pp. 36-37; CÁMARA, 2014, passim, in particular pp. 137-138.

CECCARELLI, 1996, pp. 31-34; POTIÉ, 1996, pp. 40-48; DE L’ORME, 1567, ff. 2r, 81r, 125v.

WILKINSON, 1977; WILKINSON, 1993, pp. 17-18. It is quite revealing that Wilkinson sets Herrera in opposition to the «Central Italian model of the arts», but does not mention him in his earlier study on «new professionalism». This fits well with the tripartite division of sixteenth century Spanish architects put forward by Marías 1979, between stonemasons, artists and a third group filled almost exclusively by Herrera. However, Marias puts together all architects with a masonic background and does not distinguish between «new professionals» and simple masons.

ROJAS, 1598, ff. 1-1v, 88r-89v; see also f. 101; MARTÍNEZ DE ARANDA, c. 1600, unnumered pp. at the start.

CAMPILLO, 1987; POTIÉ, 1996; see also LONG, 1985.

ANONYMOUS, c. 1540; GUARDIA, c. 1600; GARCÍA BAÑO, 2015.

DE L’ORME, 1567, 50r-128v.

CHÉREAU, c. 1567-1574.

DESARGUES, 1640.

CURABELLE, 1644.

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

SAKAROVITCH, 1994; BOSSE and DESARGUES, 1648. Pistole was a popular name for a Spanish coin worth two escudos, which was in use as a virtual currency unit in France in the period of Louis XVI marriage with Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Philip IV of Spain, with a value of ten tournois pounds. Thus, the prize amounted to 1,000 pounds.

JOUSSE, 1642; DERAND, 1643; BOSSE and DESARGUES, 1643.

SAN NICOLÁS, 1639; DERAND, 1643; CARAMUEL and LOBKOWITZ, 1678; MILLIET DECHALES, 1674; TOSCA, 1707-1715; GUARINI, 1737.

CAPEL et al., 1988; MARZAL, 1991; CALVO, 2007, pp. 173-175.

FRÉZIER, 1737-1739.

DE LA RUE, [1728] 1738, 167-183; CURABELLE, 1644, p. 3.

About the «errors of masons» and «the falsehood of old tracing methods», see FRÉZIER, 1737-1739, vol. II, pp. 43, 49-50, 140151; about skew arches with elliptical joints, see FREZIÉR, vol. II, p. 143, plate 37.

FRÉZIER, 1737-1739, vol. I, p. 271-272.

MONGE, 1799, pp. 1-2; SAKAROVITCH, 1997.

MONGE, 1799, pp. 6-11.

MONGE, 1799, pp. 15, 20-21; see also plate II. FRÉZIER, 1737-1739, vol. II, pp. 217, plate 43; MONGE, 1799, passim.

SAKAROVITCH, 1997, p. 151, 255-263.

MONGE, 1799, p. 5.

RABASA, 2000, p. 344.

MUÑOZ, 2015.

SAKAROVITCH, 1997, pp. 85-89.

ROJAS, 1598, 97 v.

CALVO, 2007.

SAKAROVITCH, 1977, pp. 221-223.

In Descriptive Geometry, a developpable surface can be materialised through deformation (excluding extension, folding or cutting) of a flat sheet of paper, cardboard or metal. Examples are cones or cylinders with any directrix. In three-dimensional space, all developpable surfaces are also ruled; that is, through every point of the surface there is a straight line that lies in its entirety on the surface. Other surfaces, known as warped surfaces, cannot be materialised through deformation of a sheet, although they can be dressed in stone or modelled in clay. Warped surfaces may be ruled surfaces, such as some kinds of skew arches, or double curvature surfaces, such as the sphere, where no straight line lies in the surface.

SAKAROVITCH, 1977, 241-244.

FROM STONECUTTING TO DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY

63

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Back to Contents

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3 Eighteenth Century Engineers’ and Architects’ Drawings for the «Royal Sites»: Survey Record and Design

JAVIER ORTEGA VIDAL1 Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, E.T.S. de Arquitectura Translation: MARGARET CLARK

ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses eighteenth century graphic production around the royal sites built in the vicinity of Madrid as a contribution to the general study of engineers’ drawings in Spain in that timeframe. Given the new status accorded military engineers by the Bourbon dynasty, these professionals’ specific participation in the places and sites occupied by the court would appear to merit analysis, drawing parallels between their own and Spanish architects’ and master builders’ graphic skills. The drawings selected for the study were chosen on the grounds of their dual role as survey records of existing circumstances and designs for possible improvement. This brief tour reveals the magnitude of the contribution made by the Crown’s new agents.

KEYWORDS

Drawing, engineers, architects, eighteenth century, royal sites, Madrid.

69

The definition of drawing proposed here is based primarily on the relationship between the two-dimensional lines and hues set down on paper and what we perceive as threedimensional reality. In this approach, the narrative builds on the idea of viewing drawing as a «deferred construction» of material reality. Construction here is construed as a precise attitude in which drawing may analogise reality by reflecting the order and dimension of things, while the adjective deferred highlights two essential distinctions between drawing and material reality: namely, nature and timing. The aim is to show that drawing and reality are not the same thing and that in their time-bound inter-relationships, the former may either reflect what already exists or anticipate what is to be.

This premise delimits an area encompassing both engineering and architectural delineation within the wide world of drawing. In its analysis, certain basic tenets should be borne in mind to sift through a number of commonplaces that may lead to confusion.

The first has to do with the routine and at times blunt division between artistic and technical drawing. The second consists in the risk of assuming the existence of a «spirit of the times» whereby in any given age, society at large has access to certain general knowledge, when in fact very different levels of understanding obviously co-exist in any given historic era depending on each individual’s capacities and circumstances.

In connection with the former, automatically qualifying architectural drawing as artistic and engineering drawing as technical is much too coarse a criterion. As in nearly all generalisations, while this simplification is at least partially true from today’s perspective, taking it at face value and overlaying it onto historical events risk concealing attractive nuances that may enrich those very events. The pages that follow consequently propose an etymological interpretation that views the associated notions of ars and thecné as two routes that would lead to not-so-different ends. To simplify the conceit, whereas the artistic option entails ease or agility, the technical pathway would be more patterned or structured.

While this approximate distinction is just one of many2, this approach to interpreting the development of drawing may be closer to objective reality, in which the proportional weight of the two aspects are acknowledged in each case. On these grounds, architectural and engineering drafting would initially be nearly the same thing, with the weight of the two procedures, agility or pattern, contingent upon the situation and the personal skills or capacities of the author in question.

These considerations introduce the second aspect, namely the acknowledgement of a balance between general progress in graphic technique and the case of each specific individual studied. Against that backdrop, drawing has traditionally been recognised to consist in what is usually regarded as an innate talent. In all ages, while some people have a gift for drawing others develop their skills along structured, more or less strict guidelines closely related to the level of understanding and training characteristic their specific historic era. The intention of this digression is to note that the possible existence of a degree of general knowledge in a given time does not mean that it would be accessible to any individual who happened to live at that time. The corollary is that specific authors might well attain a degree of skill or understanding based on their specific aptitudes far in excess of the graphic expertise characteristic of their age.

Within the above conceptual framework, this study, which in no way aspires to be exhaustive3, aims to establish the parallel pathways visible in drawings that contributed to

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

an understanding of the royal sites and shaped these new territorial and architectural spaces during the first century of Bourbon rule. Be it said here that engineering and architecture had been traditionally related in the two preceding centuries, during Habsburg rule4, although by the end of the sixteen hundreds the two appeared to be going their separate ways. From the perspective of the crown, military engineering was unconcerned with civil undertakings and converged at Brussels around Sebastián Fernández de Medrano, whereas the main reference for architecture was the «system» of royal works, comprising master builders and their quantities surveyors, governed by the venerable Works and Woodlands Council. The seventeenth century witnessed a debate around the skills to be required of master builders. Two antagonistic positions called either for a background in construction or qualifications based on a more generally artistic component5. In synthesis, further to the division between the two types of drawing referred to above, the dispute revolved around line drawing as construction and line drawing as invention.

In 1700 the master builder for royal works was José del Olmo, who defended the construction approach. Upon his death in 1702, he was succeeded by Teodoro Ardemans, initially trained as a painter, who held the position until his death in 1726. In line with this alternation, the following master builder, Juan Román, held the position from 1727 to 1739, after a successful career in construction. From then on, the disappearance of the Works and Woodlands Council and the onset of foreign intervention with the appointment of Juan Bautista Sachetti gave royal works architecture a new twist.

Coming back to the turn of the century and the origin of the new dynasty, renovation in engineering looked to France for its basic inspiration, as well as to the Corps of Military Engineers created in 1710 under the leadership of Flemish engineer George Prosper Verboom6. While its origin and purpose were clearly military, the corps began to engage in strictly civilian interests and strategies as early as 1715. The focus here is on this latter realm, tracking the development of drawing over time and its relationship to places, scales and authors, adopting as neutral an approach as possible and eluding the schematic premises mentioned above.

FIG. 1

MICHEL FREMIN.

Engineer, builder and architect, drawing extracted from Memoires critiques d´architecture, Paris,

1702.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGINEERS’ AND ARCHITECTS’ DRAWINGS FOR THE «ROYAL SITES»

71

Michel Fremin’s7 treatise published in 1702 on the roles of engineer, mason and architect [FIG. 1] provides the initial background for the figurative and cultural context addressed here. Note, however, that in this engraving, drawing tools, as well as the classical orders, are attributed to architects only, in keeping with artistic tradition. This schematic assignment of roles was actually more complex and integrated in the real world. Examples can be found in the drawings set in Madrid by two of the first professionals who came to Spain at the turn of the century: Filippo Pallota from Italy and René Carlier from France.

The first known drawing by the engineer born in Rome around 1675 is particularly significant: it depicts the people of Madrid cheering their new king in November 17008.

It features an elevation view of the Habsburg Castle, a gouache-tinted line drawing that serves as the background for the crowd, rendered as correctly and attractively structured figures in different planes. The narrative intention of the drawing is unequivocally con-

FIG. 3

FILIPPO

PALLOTA.

Interior of San Jerónimo el Real Church during Parliament’s swearing of allegiance to the new king on 8 May 1701, extracted from ANTONIO DE UBILLA Y MEDINA’s Succession del

rey D. Phelipe V nuestro señor en la Corona de España, Madrid, 1704.

Madrid, History Museum, IN 2931.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FILIPPO PALLOTA. Crowd cheering Philip V in November 1700 NICOLÁS GUERARD). Madrid, History Museum, IN 9638 and 2059.

FIG. 2

and Armory Square, 4 March 1704 (engraving by

veyed by a celestial phylactery. This same drawing would later be made into an engraving, curiously serving as the setting for another event: the king’s departure for the Portuguese campaign on 4 March 1704 [FIG. 2]. Between the two dates, Pallota had drawn a considerable number of geographic and military illustrations for the work Svccession del rey D. Phelipe V nuestro señor en la Corona de España [succession of King Phelipe V our lord to the throne of Spain], authored by Antonio de Ubilla y Medina, Marquis of Ribas, and published in Madrid in 1704. One of these drawings portrays the interiors of San Jerónimo el Real Church, the architectural setting for Parliament’s swearing of allegiance to the new king on 8 May 1701 [FIG. 3]9.

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ENGINEERS’ AND ARCHITECTS’ DRAWINGS FOR THE «ROYAL SITES»

73

RENÉ CARLIER. Planta del conjunto del palacio del Buen Retiro con sus jardines y el Prado de San Jerónimo, estado actual hacia 1712-13. French National Library, Cabinet des Estampes, FT 6-HA-20.

FIG. 4

The «Buen Retiro» [quiet retreat] compound is the milestone that attests to René Carlier’s presence in Madrid, where he arrived in February 171210. He was initially commissioned to survey the grounds and prepare the respective drawings for the palatial complex with a view to the transformations designed by his master Robert de Cotte. The general drawing for the layout of the compound and grounds, which attests to the solvency of his work and graphic acumen, reflects the immediate urban surrounds [FIG. 4].

On another scale, the plan view of the palatial core [FIG. 5] is of particularly high architectural quality. It was initially supplemented by soil and elevation contours, the originals of which are kept at the French National Library. None of the ambitious projects designed at Paris ever saw the light, however, with the exception of the parterre in the «Retiro», aligned with the eponymous mansion. The respective works, conducted between 1713 and 1715, were in all likelihood supervised by Carlier.

The next stage in his career found him participating in the earliest stages of the Royal Site at La Granja. Although the historical evidence is neither explicit nor precise, there is every indication that Carlier supervised the works on the grounds for Philip V’s «retreat», while the palace itself was designed and its construction supervised by Teodoro Ardemans, in keeping with the duties inherent in his position. No original drawings for the initial phase between 1720 and 1725 having been preserved, [FIG. 6] contains a graphic reconstruction of this curious hybrid consisting in a small, autochthonous castle-palace

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 5

RENÉ CARLIER.

Planta del Palacio del Buen Retiro, estado actual hacia 1712-13. French National Library, Cabinet des

Estampes, FT 6-HA-20.

and its French-inspired gardens11. Another member of this particular historic cast, French military engineer Etienne Marchand, apparently also assisted in the works. The record of Marchand’s specific origin and personal circumstances is as scanty as the history of Carlier’s12. After the deaths of Pallota on 10 October 1721 in Madrid and Carlier on 15 August 1722 at El Escorial, where he was FIG. 6 JAVIER ORTEGA and JOSÉ LUIS SANCHO (team leaders). buried at San Bernabé Parish, the Reconstruction of the palace at La Granja de San Ildefonso ca 1725, Madrid, 2000. graphic narrative continues in the person of the younger French engineer.

In 1718 Marchand, at the time assistant engineer or draughtsman, was promoted to the category of second lieutenant13, participating from the outset in the works on the grounds at La Granja. On Carlier’s death he assumed their supervision, introducing a new layout and composition14. Marchand’s earliest preserved drawing is not of La Granja, however, but of a garden at Migas-

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FIG. 7 ÉTIENNE MARCHAND. El soto de Migascalientes; estado actual y propuesta de intervención, 1724. Madrid, General Palace Archives, Nos 5195 and 5196.

calientes along the Manzanares river bank. Dated in 1724, it served as a basis for a second design drawing to restructure and expand the complex [FIG. 7]. Landscaping and Marchand are the guideposts to the next stage in this series, the royal site established centuries earlier at Aranjuez, where the River Jarama flows into the Tagus.

The campaign to refurbish the compound had begun in 1715 under the leadership of the master builder appointed to Aranjuez in 1712, Pedro Caro Idrogo, whose wideranging profile included architectural and military engineering skills. The commission entailed finishing the building planned by Philip II (1556-1598) to replace the former Order of Santiago monastery, still standing in the early eighteenth century, along with less than one-half of the building originally envisaged. As construction was resumed on the palace, a landscaped area was designed to flank the east wing of the building: a third parterre following on the ones at Buen Retiro and La Granja15.

A drawing signed by Master Idrogo for a tiered circular dam in the riverbed close to the northern wing of the palace is still intact16. Like others of his fairly imprecise designs, the most outstanding of which may be a new set of stairs for the central part of the palace, featuring two symmetrical semi-circular staircases, this sole graphic testimony for the dam denotes little more than elementary drafting skills. The Spanish Army’s Geographic Service preserves an attractive set of plan views and cross-sections17 showing the state of the works in 1728, from which the ground storey floor plan and a cross-section showing the former tower-chapel and the new staircase have been chosen for reproduction here [FIG. 8]. Different shades of red differentiate the older and recently built areas, while the new stairs are shown in yellow. The graphic and architectural quality of these drawings would seem to indicate that they were not authored by the local master, but rather by Marchand, who was assigned to the works at Aranjuez in late 1727. Far from competing, however, the two apparently worked together harmoniously in a cooperative spirit that more than likely permeated the design and construction of the eastern parterre, the draw-

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

ETIENNE MARCHAND (attrib.). Floor plan and cross-section of Aranjuez Palace in 1728. Madrid, Army’s Geographic Service, Historic Maps Section, Case E, Shelf 8, folder 1, No. 113.

FIG. 8

ing for which [FIG. 9] is ostensibly French. Like Carlier and Pallota before them, Idrogo and Marchand died within less than a year of one another: the former in December 1732 and the latter in November 1733.

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ETIENNE MARCHAND. Design for eastern parterre, Aranjuez Palace, July 1727. Madrid, General Palace Archives, No. 2456.

FIG. 9

FIG. 10 FERNANDO MÉNDEZ DE RAO. General grounds, La Granja de San Ildefonso ca 1736-1740. Madrid, Army’s Geographic Service, Historic Maps Section, Case E, shelf 6, folder 2, No. 214.

The career and graphic production of yet another actor, Fernando Méndez de Rao Sotomayor, carries the reader back to La Granja. In 1727 he had been posted to Aranjuez as Marchand’s assistant, although in 1732, on the occasion of his promotion to full engineer and captain, he was given a new assignment at the northern Guadarrama Mountain site of La Granja. By that time the palace had already been enlarged to the guidelines of painter and architectural theorist Andrea Procaccini (1671-1734) along with one of his assistants, architect and painter Sempronio Subisati (1680-1758). From 1734 to 1736 the young Spanish engineer drafted a superb cartography of the place that attested to the status of the palatial compound and its grounds and contained as well the earliest indications of the birth of the adjacent town [FIG. 10]18. Méndez de Rao’s delineation skills, visible in this «as-built» drawing, were apparently supplemented by designer aptitudes, as inferred by a drawing custodied at the Army’s Geographic Service [FIG. 11]. The object here is a road leading out of La Granja de San Ildefonso (the site’s full name) to the west

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FERNANDO MÉNDEZ DE RAO. Design for roads to/from San Ildefonso. Madrid, Army’s Geographic Service, Historic Maps Section, Case E, shelf 6, folder 2, No. 213.

FIG. 11

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FIG. 12

SEBASTIAN DE RODOLPHE.

Drawing of El Pardo road and proposed intervention, 1740. Madrid, General Palace

Archives, No. 1150.

in which the drawing of the area as it stood is overlain by plans for a dual trident of avenues intersecting in a new town. Note the squares between it and the gate into the royal site, skirted by exedra and twin buildings with a certain institutional air.

Engineers’ drawings for royal sites from the early seventeen forties, in turn, centred on the cartographic illustration of the road connecting Madrid and El Pardo (on the outskirts of Madrid). The first such territorial scale document, authored by engineer Sebastian de Rodolphe in 174119, depicts two dimensions: present status and design for future intervention [FIG. 12]. The value of this illustration is readily visible when compared to preceding local attempts at survey drawings (or overall graphic expressions) of the Manzanares river bank authored by Juan de Morales in 1714 and Francisco Pérez Cano in 174120. Although both provide nearly «topological» information on location, they lacked any metric precision. Rodolphe’s rendering unquestionably constituted an improvement in quality, despite the disproportionate shading with which its author attempted to approximates topographic relief.

Broadly speaking, local master builders attained a certain proficiency in architectural drawing, while their territorial renditions exhibited significant shortcomings. Examples of this can be found in two drawings by Manuel López Corona, one of the major master builders involved in the works at El Pardo. These drawings synthetically reflect the expansion of the site with the purchase by the crown of Las Batuecas estate from the Duke of Huéscar in 1750 [FIG. 13]. While the plan view and cross-section of the main building are expertly drawn, the topographic rendering of the property, despite the dimensions marked along some of its boundaries, lacks formal rigour and reeks of what by today’s standards would fall squarely in the realm of the naïf.

The first drawing of the overall El Pardo street plan is less naïf, however, than fanciful and imprecise. It is attributed to Gian Battista Novello, who supposedly received some architectural training prior to his residence in Spain from 1735 to 1753. According to his memoir, he alternated between two positions, «ingegnere civile de sua Maestá Cattolica con regio stipendio» and «architetto di sua Maestá Cattolica» [His Catholic Majesty’s court engineer and His Catholic Majesty’s architect]. Rather than his pretentious designer skills, Novello’s main contribution consisted in a series of 21 drawings preserved at the

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

MANUEL LÓPEZ CORONA. Map of Batuecas Woodlands with plan view and cross-section of Batuecas Palace in 1750. Madrid, General Palace Archives, Nos 1222 and 1224.

FIG. 13

Marziana Library, the most outstanding of which are his general renderings of the royal sites21 which, while scantly rigorous, afford an interesting overview of the end of Philip V’s reign.

As Novello’s primary ambition in Madrid, the Royal Palace, eluded him, he returned to Italy in 1753. Shortly before that date, Francisco Nangle, apparently of Irish descent although trained in France, drafted an attractive cartographic document in 1751, in which he combined present state with the design for a new road that would run north of Madrid, a precursor of what in the late nineteenth century came to be known as the city’s «boulevards». Nangle, who earned his associate engineering diploma in 1730, was promoted to lieutenant in 1733 and to full engineer status in 174022. After an initial post at Catalonia and a presumed assignment in Cuba, he appears in connection with the building of the Guadarrama Road in 1749. A second drawing of his authorship has also been preserved, the design for a gate to Madrid’s Casa de Campo park. Although no original drawings for the city’s Puerta de Hierro [iron gate] have survived, Nangle has been unequivocally attributed with the design of this monumental entrance to the El Pardo property. The sculptures were authored by Gian Domenico Olivieri and the iron work by master Francisco Moradillo. This gate was but the climax of the design for a new circular enclosure around El Pardo, designed and budgeted by the engineer himself shortly before his death in 1751, and built during the rest of the decade.

Although they constitute a digression from the core theme of this chapter, the attractive drawings showing the military manoeuvres normally conducted north and east of Madrid are certainly relevant to the city and its immediate surrounds. Dated in the seventeen sixties, these pictures of troop movements constitute the earliest cartographic record of the urban environs that one hundred years later would host the city’s enlargement. In a way, these drawings can be viewed as a preview of and supplement to the huge map of Madrid dedicated to the Count of Aranda published in 1769. Authored by engraver Antonio Espinoso de los Monteros, the ideologue and director for that endeavour

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BALTASAR RICAUD and BERNARDO FILLERA. Cross-section and elevation view of San Lorenzo el Real Monastery at El Escorial, 1759. Montreal, CCA H-IV and H-IX.

FIG. 14

may well have been architect and engineer José de Hermosilla Sandoval. The 1:1800 scale used was in keeping with the standard sponsored by the military and signed by the Count of Aranda on 31 January 175723. Further to that criterion, a scale of one Castilian foot to 600 rods (one rod = 3 feet) was deemed satisfactory «for the master plan, showing the inner ground plan, for enclosed towns... as well as for the drawings of unenclosed towns such as Madrid, Zaragoza and Seville with their streets, squares, avenue, orchards and so on».

Tracking down the elusive Hermosilla and backpedalling 10 years sets this narrative against the backdrop of El Escorial. New plan and elevation views and cross-sections for the monastery were signed at Madrid on 12 March 1759 by engineers Baltasar Ricaud and Bernardo Fillera. Four of the elevation drawings and three of the cross-sections have been located relatively recently24 [FIG. 14]. Although no explicit evidence is in place, there is every indication that these drawings were the result of an undertaking supervised by Hermosilla to document the grandiose building as the beginning of a new approach to

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

recording and appraising the country’s architectural heritage. What apparently started from within the military continued a decade later with an undertaking sponsored by the Academy and commissioned from Hermosilla to produce what ultimately was called Antigüedades Árabes de España [Arabic antiquities in Spain]. Work began in 1767 by Hermosillo himself with the assistance and cooperation of two young architects, Juan Pedro Arnal and Juan de Villanueva25.

Obviating any comparison of their relative graphic talents and stressing the complexities involved in delineating architectures such as Granada’s Alhambra or Cordoba’s mosque-cathedral, the merits of the engineers who authored the El Escorial drawings must not be overlooked. Seen from today’s perspective, Ricaud’s French and Fillera’s Catalonian nationalities are at least ironic. Given the late seventeenth century controversy over the possible French paternity of the building’s design and the symbolic charge inherent in the new central-state approach to relations with Catalonia, these engineers very likely confined themselves to anonymously following their superiors’ orders. The partial results that have been preserved nonetheless attest to the high quality of what constitutes the building’s second graphic narrative, after the late sixteenth century publication of Estampas [illustrations] and Breve Sumario [brief summary] by its architect Juan de Herrera. To place this in context, suffice it to note that this second integrated series of drawings is the «last» de novo graphic attempt to depict the monastery, up to and including the present.

Despite the anonymity associated with these engineers’ work and their nearly always incomplete biographical data, the following is an attempt to centre on the specific status of the authors, or at least the signers, of this substantial and scantly known chapter of Spain’s graphic heritage. Baltasar Ricaud de Tirgalle26 was in all likelihood born between 1720 and 1725; he was appointed draughtsman in 1740 and full engineer in 1755. In 1756 he taught drawing in the Mathematics Department headed by Pedro Padilla at the ephemeral school housed in the premises of Madrid’s recently built barracks for the Guardias de Corps. Given the timing, the geography and his profile, he was certainly qualified to participate in Hermosilla’s aforementioned initiative. The record shows that after concluding his task in 1759 and with the disappearance of the Madrid school, he devoted considerable effort to drawing the western Biscay and central Mediterranean coasts and participated in the Algiers campaign headed by Silvestre Abarca in 1775. That the latest known of this series of drawings dates from 1790 stands as proof of his long life. Less is known about Bernardo Fillera: the only proven fact is that on 22 October 1755 he was appointed draughtsman and posted at Catalonia27. The inference is that he would be from 10 to 15 years younger than Ricaud.

That, and his lower rank, would explain the existence of both men’s signatures on the drawings. Little more is known about the subsequent activity of the Catalonian engineer, except for an intriguing fact that leads, again, to where the River Jarama runs into the Tagus.

On 14 December 1760 Bernardo Fillera received orders to remove to the royal site at Aranjuez to undertake a new graphic campaign, probably as a result of his work at El Escorial28. Despite this promising start, perhaps due to the change of reign or other unknown reasons, this initiative was apparently very short-lived. Fifteen years later, however,

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FIG. 15 DOMINGO DE AGUIRRE. Topography of the Royal Site at Aranjuez, overall plan view. Aranjuez (Madrid), 1775.

National Library, MV/12, Catalogue No. 1248.

FIG. 16 DOMINGO DE AGUIRRE. Royal Site at Aranjuez, view from the water mains maintenance shed alongside Ocaña Road, 1773. National Library, INVENT/ 23138.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 17

DOMINGO DE AGUIRRE.

El Jardín del Caballo [horse’s garden] at Buen Retiro Park. Madrid, 1778. National Library

DIB/14/48/49.

the graphic documentation for the royal site at Aranjuez was to culminate with the master work authored by engineer Domingo de Aguirre29. Born at Oran in 1741 and brought up in the atmosphere of its military academy, he completed the first of his long list of graphic works, the four- storey Toledo Alcázar [fortress], in 1767. One year later he finished his graphic and literary narrative of the properties owned by the San Juan Priory at Consuegra, likewise in the province of Toledo. On 2 March 1772, as full engineer, he was posted and commissioned to compose the Topografía de Aranjuez published in 1775, which consisted in a huge ground plan of the compound engraved on sixteen 850x650-mm plates at a scale of 1:4000, and a series of supplementary views [FIGS. 15 and 16]. The military engineer’s drawings were prepared for engraving by outstanding members of the Academy.

His purportedly globalising image of the royal site was clearly a propagandistic portrayal of its new status, in which traditional recreational and leisure-time activities were combined with palace enlargement and consolidation of the adjacent town, and with the agricultural and husbandry experiments encouraged by Charles III. After finishing his mission at Aranjuez, Aguirre was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the Infantry in 1777. At around the same time, he appears to have decided to create a graphic narrative for certain elements in the city of Madrid, whether as part of an official task or a personal initiative is unclear. The earliest drawings, completed in 1778, depict the Jardín del Caballo (horse’s garden) and Jardín de San Pablo (St Paul’s garden) in Retiro Park [FIG. 17]. Two external views of the city depicting two of its gates appeared two years later, in 1780. The qualitative imbalance between the two is somewhat surprising, for in one he portrayed the brand-new Alcalá Gate with the associated works for a new road, whereas the other is a view from the San Bernardino hills on the northwest-

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FIG. 18 DOMINGO DE AGUIRRE. Madrid, Court and Capital, view from a small hill between the new and old roads to Alcalรก.

Madrid 1780. National Library DIB/14/48/47.

FIG. 19

DOMINGO DE AGUIRRE.

Madrid, Court and Capital, view from upper San Bernardino Road. Madrid, 1780. National

Library DIB/14/48/46.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 20

DOMINGO DE AGUIRRE

(attrib.). View of San Jerónimo Meadow from Retiro Park. Madrid, Caylus, private

collection.

ern edge of the city [FIGS. 18 and 19]. A curious and appealing view, unsigned and undated but attributable to Domingo de Aguirre30, has recently appeared. This oil on canvas overview of the eastern front of the city taken from Retiro Park measures an unusual 1255x413 mm, in contrast to the conventional size and proportions of the aforementioned drawings [FIG. 20]. The final years of the life of this last royal site engineer and draughtsman were fairly peculiar. In 1796 he drafted a report entitled Observaciones sobre los motivos del hundimiento del Puente de Barcas de Aranjuez [notes on the reasons for the collapse of the drawbridge at Aranjuez] and in 1798 he published the curious Descubrimiento de un error filosófico [discovery of a philosophical error]. Five years later, on 29 January 1803, he was admitted for «dementia» to Madrid’s yet unfinished General Hospital, where he died in 1805.

His 1780 view from the San Bernardino hills included Madrid’s new Royal Palace on the right. This tour of the royal sites through engineers’ drawings began just 80 years previous, with the acclamation of the first Bourbon monarch against the south façade of the former castle. By 1780 his grandson Charles III was near death and the dynasty would continue in the person of his son, who embarked on the turn of the century abruptly and with no clear loadstar. The spatial interim serves to complete this tour over time aimed to identify what has changed and what has remained the same in the built environment. One of the immense virtues of drawing is that, thanks to its testimonial value, it enables the viewer to participate in this engaging process.

The conclusion that may be drawn, by way of summary and a reflection on this specific tour guided by engineers’ drawings of royal sites, is that their contribution to local graphic culture was both beneficial and substantial. More than planned, it appears to be the sum of a series of personal skills which, in their interaction with traditional local building agents, induced a sort of positive fermentation.

This sectoral review obviously fits into a more general dynamic in the context of progress in the age of enlightenment. State centralisation and new civil and military structures, in this case the Academy of the Three Noble Arts of Drawing and the military academies, acted in parallel both educationally and strategically speaking to control the physical medium at the territorial, urban and architectural scales.

By the end of the century, the controversy between builder architects and painters of royal works had lost much of its raison d’être. Academe delimited and structured the artistic professions (painting, sculpture and architecture), whilst the military academies, in addition to attending to their specific martial interests, imposed control and interven-

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tion on a growing number of traditionally civil endeavours. Between these two realms, the overlap in architectural action and land use design, in what was to come to be known as the problem of professional attributions, set the stage for the well-known future conflict between engineers and architects that raged with considerable intensity throughout the nineteenth century31.

One final observation revolves around a possible nuance between engineers’ and architects’ drawings, whose origin can be traced back to the century at issue and which extended into the nineteenth: the impersonality of engineers’ drawings and works compared to the greater personal involvement in architects’ production. Simplifying matters somewhat, the very structure of military training and discipline would imbue engineers’ commissions with a tone of contingency, whereby a work might be begun by one person and continued by another or others with no detriment, in principle, to the effectiveness of the result. That would diminish the impact of personal authorship. In contrast, the architect’s ego plays an indisputably greater role in both the works and drawings commissioned. While this assertion may be partially called into question or its tone adjusted, a certain profound unity can be observed in engineers’ drawings. It is as if a huge hand stemming from their esprit de corps guided the ideas and pen strokes originating in the minds and hands of its individual members.

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NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

javier.ortega@upm.es Technique, technology, may also be defined as the specific knowledge of arts and science. From that standpoint and contrary to today’s platitudes that associate technical drawing with bolts and gears, as many types of technical drawing are in place as there are professional realms or specialisations.

As they have been more consistently studied, José de Hermosilla and Francisco Sabatini, paragons of the merger between architecture and engineering in the age at issue, have been omitted here for reasons of space. See RODRÍGUEZ, 1994; for approaches supplementing the one adopted here, PICÓN, 1988 and CANTERA, 2012.

CÁMARA, 1981 and 2005.

BLASCO, 2013.

MUÑOZ, 2015.

FREMIN, 1702. On engineers and architects in eighteenth century France see PICÓN, 1988.

AGULLÓ, 1984a and 1984b.

AGULLÓ, 1984b, pp. 49-52.

BOTINEAU, 1986, pp. 292-295.

SANCHO and ORTEGA, 2000, p. 112.

TOVAR, 1998 and CAPEL, 1983, pp. 396-397.

From 1718 to 1720, Marchand shared posts and missions with Pallota. See AGULLÓ, 1984a, p. 9.

BOTINEAU, 1986, pp. 458-459.

ORTEGA, 2002.

SANCHO, 1995, p. 321. AGP 1326.

BOTINEAU, 1986, p. 454.

Madrid, Centro Geográfico del Ejército, Cartoteca Histórica [Case E, shelf 6, folder 2, No. 2114].

SANCHO, 1995, p. 194.

SANCHO, 1995, p. 205.

SANCHO, 1995, pp. 209 and 463. Maps of El Pardo and El Escorial, respectively.

CAPEL, 1983, pp. 346-347.

AGS M. P. and D. XXXIV-47.

MARÍAS, 2001.

RODRÍGUEZ, 1992.

CAPEL, 1983, pp. 396-397.

CAPEL, 1983, p. 183.

CORELLA, 1989, p. 263.

CORELLA, 1989.

Caylus Gallery.

BONET, 1985 and ORTEGA, 2011.

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bition catalog, Madrid, Electa.

SANCHO GASPAR, J. L.

(1995), La Arquitectura de los Sitios Reales, Madrid, Patrimonio Nacional.

SANCHO GASPAR, J. L. and ORTEGA VIDAL, J. (2000), «La Granja y los palacios de San Ildefonso. Sobre la restitución

gráfica de las opciones arquitectónicas de Felipe V e Isabel de Farnesio», El Real Sitio de la Granja de San Ildefonso. Retrato y escena del Rey, Madrid, Patrimonio Nacional and Caja Madrid, pp. 102-126.

TOVAR MARTIN, V.

(1998), «Esteban Marchand y Leandro Brachelieu, ingenieros franceses en las obras del Real

Sitio de Aranjuez», Anales de Historia del Arte, nº 8, pp. 291-308.

Back to Contents

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4 Military Map-Making Urgency in Early Eighteenth Century Spain.

Ordinance of Engineers and the Academy of Mathematics JUAN MIGUEL MUĂ‘OZ CORBALĂ N1 Universitat de Barcelona Translation: DAVID HASTING

ABSTRACT

The conceptual guidelines of this study deal with the achievement of the institutional will of the Bourbon Spanish monarchy, since its inception after War of the Spanish Succession, in order to establish a standardized organizational procedures and methods of spatial representation by military professionals, basically engineers and draftsmen, in terms of mapping processes used throughout this technical-artistic discipline. The contribution, based mainly on documentary sources, focuses its analysis on the institutional and regulatory mechanisms of the process during the first half of the eighteenth Century in Spain, which actually is a first approach to a larger research on mapping initiatives and activity of military engineers around the representation of space in different ways.

This work shows the difficulties that existed to organize a universal frame of reference prior to a further corporate consolidation2.

KEYWORDS

Military engineering, cartography, graphic representation, ordinances, Academy of Mathematics.

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DISCIPLINARY AWARENESS AND CORPORATE DIRECTIVES3

Once the War of the Spanish Succession came to the Iberian Peninsula in 1709, with the parallel structuring of the Bourbon Army, those responsible for this faction realised the advantage of channelling the organisation of specialist corps in terms of fortification and theories of attack and defence thereof. The creation by Royal Order of the Spanish Army Corps of Engineers in 1711 represented the start a new demarcation of responsibilities and the establishment of a hierarchy that allowed a greater rationalisation of functions within the Corps’ career ladder. A year after setting this up, from his position as commander of engineers, in the midst of a war, Jorge Próspero Verboom saw the real and pressing need to confer a solid regulatory basis which would underpin their activities.

The Chief of Engineers stated that «every day we are seeing more inconveniences arising from not establishing a Regulation applicable to the Engineers, due to the frittering away of the King’s wealth, when all the world was allowed to enter a trade, to become involved in works that they do not understand. As I understand it, we can conclude these Regulations and send out circulars to all parts to ensure that nobody attempts to direct work on fortifications or on other Royal Works within the periods established for professional engineers by this ministry»4.

THE ORDINANCES OF 1718 AND 1739

Given this provisional situation and certain lack of factual control when distributing professional responsibilities – reinforced by the extraordinary military conflict between the French Bourbons and Austrian Hapsburgs – the drawing up of ordinances to establish these functions and the specific nature of work to be undertaken with members of the Corps of Engineers was essential.

The first such Ordenanza, from 17185, established the terms applicable to the tasks to be carried out from an institutional, administrative and technical point of view, which would be respected in the subsequent reviews published in 1768 and 1803, with the corresponding adaptations to the new times and technological advances. The Ordinance on the Teaching of Mathematics in 17396 also concerned itself with cartographic questions, an important aspect in the study plan put forward by the Royal Academies of Mathematics (Barcelona, Oran and Ceuta), with its training programmes for the recruitment of skilled map- and plan-making staff.

The objective of the 1718 Ordenanza, explicitly aimed not only at members of the Corps of Engineers but also «other people» involved in and technical or administrative process related to their professional duties, was to define in detail the responsibilities of all those intervening therein [FIG. 1]. The text, with its declaration of Real approval – and, by extension, of the needs of the centralist Bourbon state established at the conclusion of the War of the Spanish Succession – applied the instructions that engineers should follow, from the project stage to execution material on the ground to avoid the wastage that was habitual in many companies, as a result of «having executed the work without plans from, nor the supervision of professional engineers, and without the involvement of the Spanish Treasury»7.

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Real Ordenanza, e Instruccion de 4 de Julio de 1718 para los Ingenieros, y otras personas, dividida en dos partes... In J. A. PORTUGUÉS, Colección General de las Ordenanzas Militares..., 1765, Volume VI, pp. 764-765.

FIG. 1

Analysis of the text allows us to establish a structure of the various parameters and concepts considered to be essential to the organisation of the professional duties of the Spanish Army Corps of Engineers. The regulatory text is particularly strict on deficiencies taken by «certain members of the Military and others» when «determining and undertaking works, without there being an order or project approved by me». Attending specifically to questions that are directly related to graphic representation mechanisms in the hands of engineers, the ordinance lost no time in setting out «the rules» that were essential for the satisfactory outcome of the government’s structures, whose intentions focused on avoiding unnecessary expense, «to the great detriment of my Treasury» and whose frameworks for intervention covered not only the strategic domain, but also the socio-economic and, by extension, the political. While the motives that lead one to discern in detail the regulation imposed on engineers originated in the State’s clear reasoning, the specific nature of the procedures to be followed by them responded to reflections of the heads of the Corps, particularly the Chief of Engineers Jorge Próspero Verboom, a true mover behind the corporate structuring and design of the programme of activities that he and his subordinates had planned8. The conviction that the success of the necessary objectives had to be achieved through the rational limitation of technical procedures related to cartography and the unification of criteria in the completion of the graphic material relating to projects therefore made the «First Part» of this ordinance a genuine manual of map-making techniques. The «Second Part» of the reference text, setting out administrative and management responsibilities, did not however fully abandon the essential indications for a correct design of projects and their material mechanisms required for execution. Good planning means significant savings by eliminating unnecessary expenses, although the unification of criteria ensures the universality of procedures and the homogeneity of mechanisms of intervention on the ground, despite the enormous variability of material conditions (geological, edaphological, climatic etc.), inevitably leading to destabilisation. The use of a standardised language should impede varying interpretations which depend on the different

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(No author specified) [¿PEDRO COISEVOX?]. Mapa de la Isla Iris distante de la plaza del Peñon de Velez de la Gomera de 2500 Toisas a su poniente, de la Ensanada o puerto que forma dicha Isla con las dos resifas de poniente, de levante y la playa del nombre de la Isla y parte de la Costa de Berbería pertenenciente al Rey de Mequinés año de 1722. Los montes que se demuestran son de tierra lo bastante Elevados y Cubiertos de Arboles. (No place specified) [in situ], 1722. Appendix to a letter from PEDRO COISEVOX to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Malaga, 23 August 1729. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 59, 012.

FIG. 2

attitudes of the engineers responsible for on-site supervision. Thus, in the «First Part» of the 1718 Ordinance, the instructions and orders were clear in their pursuit of methodological unity. While it is true that engineers and planners enjoyed relative freedom to make the first maps «to the scale they deemed appropriate», once the draft had been produced, they were obliged to «make a clean copy to a set scale» based firmly on the French model and its system for measuring length and graphic representation, in other words la toise, a measurement system based on feet and inches, the line and the point [FIGS. 2-6].

The underlying intention in the cartographic instruction given to engineers was primarily linked to the representation of territory and the elements integrated therein, both natural and artificial. The spirit that drove this process was originally that of contributing to knowledge in the Kingdom and the corresponding cataloguing of the Crown’s strategy and its administrative mechanisms concerning all the monarchy’s possessions. It therefore showed a desire to create – in a way that was as yet undefined at that time – the basis of an atlas mapping all the nation’s territories. The Army Corps of Engineers had very few among their number who could undertake such a task, to which we should add their short existence. They basically depended on the work carried out on the ground in

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FIG. 3 (No author specified) [¿PEDRO COISEVOX?]. Plano de la Isla Iris, situada a 2500 Toisas de la Plaza del Peñon de Velez de la Gomera, a su Poniente. (No place specified) [in situ], (no date specified) [1722]. Appendix to a letter from PEDRO COISEVOX to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Malaga, 23 August 1729. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 59, 014.

numerous military and strategic campaigns, all of which made it necessary to define the essential criteria of their activities. The solid nature of the French model and the experience of the Corps du génie and its recently formed Spanish counterpart as a result of their fifteen-year collaboration in the common front known as the Two Crowns in the War of the Spanish Succession served to ensure that the dynamic of the State would decide to use French system assimilated by the engineers at the service of the Spanish monarchy, many of which were actually of French and Flemish origin9.

On the advice of his ministers, King Philip V, himself of French origin, chose to adapt the Gallic-Bourbon system to suit Spanish conditions – more specifically those experienced in Castile – with a model that reflected a new concept of a centralised State, still somewhat influenced by the Italian influence in the court, a circumstance that was also related to the presence of the Spanish monarchy in Italian lands10. The Ordenanza thus stated that «the four common scales of Spanish leagues, French leagues, Italian miles and Castilian varas be proportioned and recorded on maps, under the established principle, that within one degree there are seventeen and a half Spanish leagues». The arguments in favour of such standardisation were set out in Point 26, indicating that by using

[¿PEDRO COISEVOX?]. Perfil tomado sobre la Línea AB en la Isla Iris ques todo su largo de norte a medio Día. (No place specified) [in situ], (no date specified) [1722]. Appendix to a letter from PEDRO COISEVOX to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Malaga, 23 August 1729. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 59, 013.

FIG. 4

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[¿PEDRO COISEVOX?]. Perfil tomado sobre la Línea CD, en la Isla Iris ques su ancho de Levante a poniente. (No place specified) [in situ], (no date specified) [1722]. Appendix to a letter from PEDRO COISEVOX to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Málaga, 23 August 1729. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 25, 147.

FIG. 5

the imposed measurements, «which are general and common in Spain, all doubts and confusion, caused by the particular measurements used in each Province, are highlighted». The aim of clearly outlining the Crown’s possessions, respecting the legislation of the time depending on the corresponding peace treaties established previously, principally that signed in Utrecht in 171311, making it explicit that «at our border, special care should be taken in the justified delineation of the true boundaries of each Domain». It is also interesting to note in the fourth point of the «First Part», stating that the planned cartographic corpus drawn up by the Spanish engineers should use – and thus be recorded in the international corpus – «the best Maps and information that can be acquired».

The graphic indications did not go beyond questions of scale and units of measurement, as well as obviously general concerns such as ensuring that all the elements represented «are delineated with the greatest distinction» and «depending on the extension allowed by the scale». Mention is only made of «a line of large dots, as ordinarily styled» to show the division of the territory into legal and administrative areas, which should be mentioned on paper with their correct names, in their various categories. The size of the maps was not fixed, with the only clear indication being that «care should always be taken to ensure that the Map is wider than it is high, orientated in such a way that its top directly corresponds to North». Given that the intention was to be able to «constantly distinguish the circumstances that need to be noted», the scale has to be kept constant, exactly «one inch of a French foot by one thousand toises», although «in the event that

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[PEDRO COISEVOX]. Plano de la Ysla Yris en la Costa de Africa. Dista una Legua del Peñon. (No place specified) [Malaga], (no date specified) [c. 1729]. Appendix to a letter from PEDRO COISEVOX to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Málaga, 23 August 1729. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 59, 011.

FIG. 6

the Map becomes too big and difficult to handle, due to the size of the Province, it shall be divided into two, three or four Maps»12.

The criteria behind the reflections set out in the Ordinance covered both civil and military matters13. Although some of these maintain a clearly independent specificity, the focus was on the idea that both factors were essential to ensure the operational form and effectiveness of the State’s structures, ensuring that infrastructures had the wherewithal to firmly establish such a basis: various categories of Royal roads (roads for carriages and carts, bridle path, footpaths etc.) and border crossings, which were also «delineated with the greatest distinction», including «separate concerns and precautions, which, with art and the advantages offered by the situation, may be employed to hinder or slow passage».

The «art» referred to here is the talent of the engineers and their skill in projecting their designs onto paper. It is interesting to note that the fixed scale used to draw up topographic maps became a factor that determined the result of what was being graphically represented, given that the terrain or territory depicted would cover «the extent of the map», in other words, would be limited to what the scale used – an inch to a thousand toises (approximately 1:72000) – and the reasoned measurements of what cartography would allow.

The reflections expressed in the regulations clearly delimited the principle objectives behind the 1718 Ordinance [TABLE 1].

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KING State Knowledge of the kingdom in orographical, topographical and chorographical terms through “individual news” of the following type: Civil

Military

Cities Towns Places Roads Rivers Bridges Canals Irrigation channels Aquifers

Fortified enclosures Sea ports Bays Coasts

To achieve the development of the nation, “in a manner conducive to my service, and for the good of my Vassals” by means of gathering data about Territory

Structures

Infrastructures

For Civil Purposes

Military Purposes

Facilitate the transport of people

Repair and improve

Permit the trading of goods

Fortifications Fortified Enclosures Sea ports

Increase industrial, agricultural and stockbreeding productivity

TABLE 1

Real Ordenanza e Instrucción de 22 de Julio de 1739 para la enseñanza de las Mathemáticas en la Real y Militar Academia que se ha establecido en Barcelona («Ordinance and instruction of 22 July 1739 covering the teaching of mathematics in the Royal and Military Academy established in Barcelona») focused specifically on the internal running of the institution which was founded mainly to train the most astute soldiers in the field of mathematics in order that they might join the «Corps of Engineers and Artillery» and «particular gentlemen who may excel in this important science»14. Its tenets further supported the aims already set out in the 1718 Engineers Ordinance [FIG. 7].

As well as establishing directives covering theoretical studies based on arithmetic, geometry, fortification and related disciplines – each area divided into four nine-month courses – the ordinance outlined the establishment during the second course of «an ex-

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Real Ordenanza e Instruccion de 22 de Julio de 1739 para la enseñanza de las Mathemáticas en la Real y Militar Academia que se ha establecido en Barcelona, y las que en adelante se formaren, en que se declara el pié sobre que deberán subsistir, lo que se ha de enseñar en ellas, las partes que han de concurrir en los sugetos para ser admitidos, y los premios y ascensos con que se les remunerará á los que se distinguieren por su aplicacion. In J. A. PORTUGUÉS, Colección General de las Ordenanzas Militares..., 1765, Volume VI, pp. 872-873.

FIG. 7

traordinary class one day a week (...) instructing Academy students in the magnitude and form of the Earth, the manufacture and use of Terrestrial and Celestial Globes and Geographical Charts, knowledge of Plans and the various colours used therein, and what each signifies, so that they might be fully instructed in order to undertake the duties entrusted to them in my Royal service». In the third course another extraordinary class was programmed on «Military perspective and Gnomonology, including the preparation and use of Hydrographic Charts, for their use in the resolution of nautical problems», within the ordinary curriculum. In the fourth course there was a focus on academic training in graphic representation, in order «to teach accurate delineation, the practical application of colour to demonstrate sections, their distribution and decoration, with the adornment pertaining to all Military Buildings, making use of the respective Plans, Profiles and Elevations, starting with a regular fortified front, on one half of which the latitude of the wall is manifest, with buttressed foundations while on the other the concluded work, and, seen from above, with a number of cross sections in order to examine heights. This shall be executed on a large-scale plan of a Semi-Bastion or Counterguard, also including Bridge, Gate, Corps of Guards, Water tank, Sentry, Barracks, Stores, Arsenal, Hospital and Church. Finally, instruction shall be given in all matters pertaining to the notion of the role of Military Buildings required in a fortified enclosure. Students shall be taught the way to prepare specific Plans and Maps of Provinces: the way to distinguish and represent on paper cultivated and uncultivated land, Forests, Ravines, Roads, Mountains, Outcrops, Coastlines, Rivers, Marshes, Houses, Gardens and Smallholdings. Also instruction in Trenches, Batteries, investment and circumvallation lines in fortified enclosures, providing them with detailed designs of all manner of instruments for Sappers, Ricks, and Fences, Defensive Shields and Bolsters: how to make and use them, with all other operations that employ them, the defence of fortifications, Encampments, Army battle plans, with all the corresponding colours, the enlargement and reduction of Plans, scale reduction, the way to take and delineate a view of a fortified enclosure or terrain, in order to represent these on paper in a natural manner and generally the form of pro-

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FIG. 8 JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM (signed).

Barcelonne. Citadelle 1715.

Plana d’une des portes de la citadelle avec son passage, vestibule, corps de garde, Escalliers pour monter sur le Rampart, et partie du plan du Pont / Planta de una de Las puertas de la Ciudadela con su entrada, Corredores, cuerpos de guardia, Escaleras para subir al Terraplen, y parte del Puente. (No place specified) [Barcelona], (no date specified) [1715]. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 08, 143.

FIG. 9 FERMÍN DE LOYOLA (signed). Plano de La

Puerta Principal de La Ciudadella de Barcelona. (No place specified) [Barcelona], (no date specified) [c. 1724].

España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte.

Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 05, 082.

jecting and drawing Projects based on Plans, with all corresponding profiles, elevations and views for the clarification of intelligence and thought. The relationships between these should be accompanied by the reasoning behind them and the advantages that follow on from execution. Finally, instruction shall facilitate the Students’ understanding.

The Director of Drawing shall teach and explain all required Design, on the approval of the Inspector and the Director General of the Academy, ensuring that they copy said instruction, with the assistance of the spoken voice. They shall also be responsible the way in which the above is executed, in the most punctual manner» [FIGS. 8 and 9].

The 1739 Ordenanza offers no particular details of how maps and plans should be prepared, as such specifications would be taught during the drawing course. The instruction also set out «by special grace» the extraordinary permission to remain for certain

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students «in order that, having perfected their Drawing, they do not slow the progress of the new students». The text also stresses the importance that the War Secretary gave to graphic training of those aspiring to become engineers or those engineers who wished to perfect their drawing skills. In order to prevent complications in carrying out orders and facilitating the teaching dynamic, those responsible in the military hierarchy and at the Treasury (the Captain General, Overseers, etc.), along with the Academy’s Director General and Inspector were obliged to allow without hindrance «the purchase of drawing paper, paints, paint brushes and all that is required in the fourth class», with the Director of Drawing taking charge of the purchase and distribution of this material among the students.

ACADEMIC CONTROVERSIES AND THE NEED FOR REFORM IN THE CORPS

In corporate terms, the implication of engineers was of fundamental importance in stimulating the processes of development and improvement of map-making methods and techniques. These actions were channelled in practice by the competent authorities – either by institutions overseeing engineers (both general and provincial), or by the Royal Board of Fortifications in Madrid15 –, the War Secretary and the military leaders at the various general headquarters16.

In any event, the political-economic and military governing bodies were aware of the need to establish detailed regulations regarding the work related to plotting and drawing maps and plans as a basic instrument in the strengthening of the Kingdom’s security mechanisms. Here we should highlight Royal initiatives to create map- and model-making collections at various points during the eighteenth century.

Specifically, during the reign of Philip V, the engineer Miguel Marín was commissioned in the 1720s to produce – with the help of his colleague and fellow countryman Francisco Ricaud – plans in relief of a number of the Kingdom’s fortified enclosures, including Cádiz, Pamplona and Ceuta.

Toward the end of the following decade, in 1738, the same engineer from Marseille took charge of compilFIG. 10 MIGUEL MARÍN (signed). Plano del Castillo y Villa de ing an ambitious collection of maps Cardona con sus contornos. Barcelona, 15 January 1739. AGMM. and plans [FIG. 10]. Under the governCH, Atlas 194-31.

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FIG. 11

ALFONSO

XIMÉNEZ.

Model of Cadiz.

(No place specified) [Cadiz], (no date specified) [1777-1779]. Detail.

ment of Charles III, Alfonso Ximénez, another military engineer, was commissioned to start a second large-scale relief map-making initiative [FIG. 11]. These ventures, comparable to others led by the French monarchy from the seventeenth century onward, did not achieve their desired aims17. Surrounding these matters, a major controversy arose among the various authorities who went to some lengths to point out the shortcomings of the members of the Corps, or those aspiring to join it, in reaching the required standard of cartographic excellence, in all but a few cases.

Both from the point of view of the cartographic design and the academic context that should ensure the excellence of the engineers, the problems were nevertheless constant in the quest to establish standardised control over professional mechanisms and the particular circumstances of each individual. Essentially this is because, with the exception of the Barcelona Academy and its counterparts in Oran and Ceuta, the integrated training of engineers, both theoretical and practical, including the ambivalent attitude toward drawing, with the difficulties experienced in each province proved to be extremely problematic.

The areas covered at the Brussels Academy of Mathematics in the late seventeenth century, at which Verboom studied, were greatly beneficial in the achievement of the aims of that institution: «In the establishment in Flanders, students undertook practical work at the Academy in the afternoon and studied Lessons in the morning. As they were alone in their homes, where they did not have as much fun as in Academy, they could apply themselves more to their studies, allowing the Director to attend more to his Engineering work, especially when working on fortifications, where his Students could accompany him and gain practical experience, to complement the Lessons they take at the Academy». The Brussels Academy also excelled in the training and preparing of students to work as assistants, as the director «knowing that the Students understand the Theory, can choose from their number those that are most suited, as did the Director Sebastian de Medrano in Flanders»18.

A few years after the 1718 Ordinance came into force, Jorge Próspero Verboom visited the War Minister to explain the number of engineers to be sent from Catalonia

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

LORENZO SANZ (signed). Fortress with points of attack. (exam question for qualification as an engineer-draughtsman). (No place specified) [Madrid], (no date specified) [1761]. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 31, 058.

FIG. 12

to Valencia and the garrisons in Africa. These included Esteban Panón, «who resided in the Plaza de Tortosa, and, due to his knowledge in the field, gave classes in Mathematics to many officials from the Walloon Guards and others». The Chief of Engineers rectified his decision, arguing that «given the importance to the Royal Service that Army officers apply this Science, particularly to the Rules of Fortification and the Theory of the Attack and Defence thereof, and other war operations (...) to which we should add that not all engineers, however capable they might be, are able to teach.

For this task, special talents are required», adding that it would be advisable that Panón «stayed in Tortosa and continued his teaching»19. It is important to bear in mind that the training of engineers in fortification and theories of attack and defence was firmly based on knowledge of such techniques through the study of detailed illustrations, a factor that would become clear some years later with the institutionalisation of the exams to join the Corps of Engineers and the Inspection of the Artillery [FIGS. 12 and 13].

As far as the importance of drawing to professional activities of the engineers, there were numerous questions raised, both within and outside the Academy of Mathematics. In 1724, the Count of Montemar, the Captain General of Catalonia, requested the opinion of the Chief Engineer of the Principality, Alejandro de Rez, as to whether he deemed it «advisable that those who do not master the technique should draw and

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design in order that they correctly understand the fundamentals of fortification»20. The Parisian engineer, seeking to avoid any controversy with his superiors, answered that in any event the Order that «those attending this Academy should learn drawing in order that it might have the best draughtsman in the Principality» should be obeyed, adding that he knew of no «Draughtsman capable of directing or teaching another, as if there are any scribes, they will only draw if one stands over them at all times». This lack of independence among those aspiring to be draughtsmen meant that the search for capable hands was a long one. It also made it advisable to offer a salary to those who did make the grade, as well as «an extra payment for paints, paper, brushes and other expenses (which Your Excellency cannot ignore) whose goods are imported from FIG. 13 MARCELO ESTRANIO (signed). Elevacion de una outside Spain as I have declared before Puerta del Orden Toscano, destinada para el Puente M de la Plaza (exam question for qualification as an Artillery Inthe Court on various occasions»21. The spector). (No place specified) [Barcelona], (no date specified) [c. 1752-1753]. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Frenchman’s opinions led Montemar Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 15, 130.

– awaiting the official establishment of the Academy of Mathematics which was already operating on a de facto basis, with one hundred and thirty students in five classes and in continuous growth – to tell the Court that it would be «most advisable that His Majesty allows me to outline to those that are able and are able to prepare the Plans well to attend the Academy to teach this skill, without further payment as they will have their salary»22. The arrangements required to provide the school with an engineer capable of teaching at the drawing academy in Barcelona led the Captain General to continue in the meantime to look for possible candidates, proposing the extraordinary French engineer Bernardo Fernando Lasala, «concurring with his ability and inclination toward teaching». The unfortunate impossibility to find a suitable number of educationally skilled draughtsmen forced the War Secretary to take the decision to approve the appointment of Lasala as drawing assistant at the Barcelona Academy «to teach drawing and colouring of plans, and to see if among the other subordinate engineers there is one or more that have this ability, or other skill as well as the aforesaid mathematics, working under the direction of Matheo Calabro, although in separate classrooms»23.

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MATEO CALABRO AND THE DESTABILISATION OF THE ACADEMIC SYSTEM

The engineer Bernardo Fernando Lasala consolidated his position at the Academy of Mathematics, years later taking charge of further duties concerning wooden models used to complement other teaching material in certain subjects. In this regard, his skill as a draughtsman meant that he was recommended by Calabro to Verboom, who ordered the Frenchman to «help the Director in the preparation of Plans and Profiles for these Models, adhering to the Dimensions given to him». The Flemish engineer – in a delicate state of health as well as suffering certain institutional marginalisation – continued to pass on the views of the War Secretary who told him «it is not convenient for the Master Architect to attend this Academy», suggesting that it was Calabro who was responsible for forming the «Relationship of the required models, with the corresponding tallying». The director’s reaction in this regard highlighted the particular idiosyncrasy of the character, who, in an interview with Bernardo Fernando Lasala said – according to Jorge Próspero – that «[Calabro] should not involve himself in any matter concerning the training of these Models, as he will only be teaching in the Academy, and the fine, strong and comfortable subject that is Military Buildings»24.

This «Vitruvian» demand, showing that Calabro had no intention of descending from his theoretical paradise in which he had made himself at home – reclaiming for himself the noble dignity of classical concepts of venustas, firmitas and utilitas – came up against the most practical aspect of preparing teaching models in wood «for the instruction and understanding of Students of Stonemasonry, Arch and Vault construction, Bridge building and other matters concerning the construction of Civil and Military Buildings». The director actually thus avoided undertaking a task that was somewhat onerous for him, leaving to Lasala, «the Director of Drawing, Scientist in the Art of Drawing and Stonemasonry and Expert in Civil and Military Architecture» the job of working on the design on paper of these wood pieces in order to «move the spirit and hand of the Master Carpenter or sculptor that has to work them», reserving his training solely for the preparation of plans and profiles25.

There was no let-up in the attempts to recruit engineers to teach drawing and other subjects at the Academy of Mathematics. Calabro, the director, referred to the aspiring young engineer Marcos T’Serstevens as somebody who «with great exactitude, and having studied at this Royal Academy for four years the principal treatises on Mathematics, namely Speculative or Theoretical Geometry, Practice upon paper and on the ground, Regular and Irregular Fortification, Campaigns, Trigonometry, Conical Sections, Statics, Geography and Spheres. And, having jointly applied the foregoing to drawing and its dependent disciplines, has shown himself to be adept at preparing and plotting any Plan or Map»26 [FIG. 14]. T’Serstevens became assistant to the illustrious Calabro at the Academy, at the order of Jorge Próspero Verboom, «to teach drawing to my Students in order that they might better know the most precise areas of Theory, instructing them in all Details of Military and Civil Architecture as well as in Campaign operations, and teaching them the use of the Plane Table and other Mathematical Instruments»27.

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FIG. 14 MARCOS T’SERSTEVENS (signed). Plano y Perfiles de un Almazen de Repuesto que la Ciudad de Lerida deve construir entre el Fuerte Garden y su reducto avanzado, Capaz de Contener mil Quintales de Polvora. Lleida, October 1739. (Approval signed by MIGUEL MARÍN, Barcelona, 16 October 1739). España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 07, 001.

A matter of special importance regarding the content of the material linked to the drawing class and the pedagogical methods used by the first director of the Barcelona Academy of Mathematics ensured that tension was maintained for over a decade between him and a number of military engineers, including Verboom. Mateo Calabro appealed directly to the War Secretary to take steps to raise the level of the students in terms of the academic skills, thus training a new generation of engineers who were adept in the art of drawing and cartography. These terms were used to express the essential differences between the more technical aspects (drawing) and the more artistic (colouring): «Here we must stress the science of delineation, that it is essential to distinguish the Art that the Engineers vulgarly refer to as colouring, as line drawing is the adding of detail, or examining on paper a part of a building or machine, that the engineer only has in his imagination, something to hold onto, to form the plan of a Fortress

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and its terrain on paper, the terrain that an army occupies and should occupy. This art can never be attained by an engineer or soldier who is unaware of the area of Mathematic expressed above. The art of colouring has no greater mystery than the fantasy of any man, because this art (which is only a counsel to Engineers and in some cases merely accidental), is no more than applying colour to Edifice, Machine and Encampment (as plotted by the engineer) in order to reveal of what materials they are made.

For those with intelligence this requires little time, although some may need much longer to prepare themselves in the fine taste of applying colours, while others may never achieve it (with respect to those who have thus been described as accidental), as I have seen in my Students, to whom I have taught colouring having procured to educate them in the spirit of the areas of Mathematics that a good draughtsman requires.

Drawing is an onerous task, while colouring is most enjoyable, something that I should remind Your Excellency, at the service of His Majesty, is useful for Academy Students.

Colouring should be taught to those who are well advanced in the science of drawing and not to beginners, as these would too easily abandon the laborious for the more pleasurable»28.

Calabro took advantage of the favours that the Marques of Aitona and the Count of Montemar bestowed on him to counteract the supposed «slanders and inventions» of the engineers Alejandro de Rez and his son-in-law Pedro Moreau regarding Calabro’s unsuitability as director of the Academy, due to him being – according to a transcription of the latter – «the most unworthy and ignorant man to have ever entered the Corps of Engineers»29. Mateo’s pedagogical approach was certainly particular, as he held and fervently practiced the conviction that «leaving the City and showing my Students how to execute, on the ground, what they had been taught at the School is useless. His Majesty needs draughtsmen, not those versed in Geometry»30. Despite Calabro’s words in defence of the students’ graphic training, he also insisted in not giving «licence to my students to use a paintbrush unless they have been at the Academy for at least a year and have a natural disposition toward its use. If not we shall create a horde of impertinents, who, with four strokes of their brush, shall attract the admiration of the ignorant and consider themselves to be fine men»31.

In light of the declarations such as «firstly one has to foment the academic spirit, accustom the student to think rightly, to habilitate their hands in the application of carmine and Indian ink as they draw their lines, which others have prepared with pencil» it should be no surprise that the Chief of Engineers was deeply upset by an attitude that he considered to be contrary to the spirit in which the Academy of Mathematics was founded, under his own auspices. Verboom saw the excess of theoretical preparation as proposed by Calabro as unnecessary, given that in practical matters «they never teach of reality on the ground» and «as far as drawing is concerned, an Engineer has never need to pay special heed thereto, regardless of how it was as an essential part». Criticism of the director focussed on the accusation that «he tended to spend many months with the Students on Algebra, which as well as not being necessary for the ends for which this Academy was founded, displeased them to the extent that they lost their eagerness to learn the essential, which was the intention of His Majesty»32.

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As far as we can tell from existing documentation, Mateo Calabro combined two fundamental characteristics: a narcissistic pride and a certain arrogance which leant toward victimhood, something that was evident when he said that «in order for a man to be content, he should not involve himself with directing public matters», regardless of the extent of his desire to maintain the status that being Director of the Academy afforded him. Despite there being some justification for his motives, his excessive selfesteem was manifest when he boasted of «having made my students (…) in the living image of an Engineer so perfect that nor I nor my students could ever attain such a level of perfection. This I have done for many reasons, of which the most important is to instil in them the idea that in order to be an Engineer one must study for longer than one year»33. His wife, Agustina, defended him before an old guardian of hers, Juan Carrillo de Albornoz – now the Duke of Montemar and recently-appointed War Minister – by assuring him that her husband was possessed by «a burning passion» which led him to manifest a certain insubordination toward the Chief of Engineers as a result of «not knowing how to correctly adjust his style to that required in Modern Politics, accustomed as he is to take great care with the truth»34.

NEW CRITERIA FOR THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE CORPORATE SYSTEM

A combination of various direct and indirect factors regarding control over the Army Corps of Engineers, whose Commander Jorge Próspero Verboom’s health had been in significant decline since the early 1730s, affected the corporate dynamic of the Corps.

After the failure of the 1727 siege to expel the English from Gibraltar, the Chief of Engineers was called to Madrid to discuss matters relating to the Corps, where he remained until 1731 before finally returning to Barcelona. During this period, the Flemish engineer received orders to suggest reforms to the Engineers Ordinance, as it seemed to be increasingly causing greater problems to its members, both in questions of discipline and in matters of professional training. The Duke of Montemar’s success in the 1732 expedition to Oran and Mers-El-Kébir (known to the Spanish as Mazalquivir), which concluded with the Spanish taking the two Ottoman fortified towns, saw José Carrillo de Albornoz appointed Joint Secretary of War and the Treasury, José Patiño, promoted within the government hierarchy. With Montemar’s appointment as War Secretary in 1737, important changes were introduced that affected the dynamic of the Corps of Engineers. Carrillo highlighted the need to create a specific body to oversee the production of graphic material relating to military projects throughout the Kingdom, the Royal Board of Fortifications. Interest in this measure focused on the desire to ensure close monitoring of the mechanisms around the conception and execution of «Fortifications and Military Buildings», some of which, in the opinion of the new War Secretary – «having manifested to the Royal Exchequer how prejudicial was the experience in service of His Majesty» – were evidently deficient, not only in the way that they had been realised, but also in terms of the project and planning phases that had been established. Montemar’s arguments clearly set out the administrative requirements to be taken care of35.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 15

MIGUEL MARÍN

(signed). Plano de la Plaza de Barcelona. Barcelona, 4 September 1738. AGMM.CH, Atlas 194-30.

One of the ways to establish strict control over these organisational processes consisted in commissioning the Engineer Director of the Principality of Catalonia, Miguel Marín, to produce an atlas based on existing cartographic material and the plotting of new maps and plans. Faced with this new challenge of a strictly graphic nature (yet nonetheless of great importance), the instructions sought to be clear and specific. The man from Marseille therefore drew up «the plans for the Fortresses in this Principality on the same scale, two inches to one hundred toises» – approximately 1:3600. The task was to be carried out, under his supervision, by «the Engineers that are most skilled in drawing, with the corresponding cleanliness». Measurements also had to be standardised, so that «every piece of paper for the plans must be three feet, four inches and eight lines in width, the same size as two pages of the book that His Majesty has ruled shall contain the plan of all Spain’s Fortified Enclosures. The total height of the paper shall be two feet and five inches. From the edge of the paper to the plan frame’s first black line there must be a seven-line blank margin». Marín promised to release these «as each is finished», although he observed that he had already «prepared the most important Fortresses at a scale of one inch and a half to one hundred toises» (1:4800), insinuating that, having started, he should be allowed to continue using this scale, «whose size would be much more accurate to undertake this work at a reduced scale». He also acknowledged receipt of the commission to undertake «the ratification [sic – rectification] of some in which I do not have the slightest confidence» notifying that he had concluded the ambitious plan of Barcelona36 [FIG. 15].

With this technical-administrative initiative – parallel to the establishment of close centralised control over the ordinary intake of engineers through a series of standardised exams which were, in the main, sat at the Academy of Mathematics before members of the Board of Fortifications – the door was opened to greater institutional strictness and control by the War Secretary in the setting up of the Corp. In 1768 the first major reform of the Ordinances was instigated under the command of the King-

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Ordenanzas de S. M. para el servicio del Cuerpo de Ingenieros…, Ordinances, 1768, pp. 146-147.

FIG. 16

dom’s Inspector General of Fortifications, Juan Martín Zermeño [FIG. 16]37. The creation in 1737 of the Board of Fortifications in Madrid and the replacement of Calabro as director of the Barcelona Academy with the Asturian Pedro Lucuze in 1739 – both of which were signs of the new air that Montemar was blowing through the ministry – were the two determining factors in ensuring the reorientation of the Army Corps of Engineers educational disciplinary panorama, as well as the activities related to construction and cartographic work [FIG. 17].

FIG. 17 SEBASTIÁN FERINGÁN CORTÉS. Plano de la Posizion del Monte de Aguilas donde se á caido la Torre ultima a la costa del Oueste del Reyno de Murcia, i Proiecto de un Fuerte i Batería para defender este importante puesto i abrigo de Nabegantes.

Cartagena, 3 October 1752. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 20, 056.

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NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

Universitat de Barcelona, Faculty of Geography and History, Department of Art History, Carrer de Montalegre 6 – 5º – Desp.

5007, 08001 Barcelona, juanmiguelmunoz.corbalan@ub.edu This text, part of the DIMH project, has been the inspiration behind the resumption of a general line of research which I began during my tenure as a Visiting Scholar at the Office for History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley in the 1992-1993 academic year, under the title Iconografía, cartografía, bibliografía científico-estratégica e ingeniería militar en la España de los siglos XVI-XVIII («Iconography, Cartography and Military Engineering in Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries Spain»).

The abbreviations used when quoting source material from the archives are as follows: GMAM.HML (General Military Archive, Madrid. Historical Map Library), SGA.MPD (Simancas General Archive. Maps, Plans and Drawings) and SGA.WS (Simancas General Archive. War Secretariat).

Given the particular characteristics of this work, which was envisaged as a piece of research based almost solely on archival documentary material, there are not too many bibliographical references, as they would only serve to reiterate the material which is largely cited from other publications. For this reason we will be mentioning such works – which are of unquestionable scientific value – in general terms, where appropriate.

Regarding the various questions relating to the training and other characteristics of the Spanish Army Corps of Engineers, see CAPEL et al., 1988, specifically Chapters I-III of «Primera parte: los ingenieros del rey», pp. 13-93 and «Tercera parte: la práctica de los ingenieros» and Chapters «XI. La composición del cuerpo de ingenieros» and «XII. Las condiciones de trabajo de los ingenieros militares», pp. 255-314. See also GALLAND, 2008, particularly «Première partie. Le Corps des ingénieurs militaires. Une institution polyvalente», pp. 13-142 and «Troisième partie. Vie sociale, vie privée des ingénieurs militaires», pp. 241-351.

Other works of interest in this regard: ALMIRANTE, 1869; BONET, 1991; BRAVO, 1991; CÁMARA MUÑOZ et al., 2005; CÁMARA et al., 2015; CAPEL et al., 1983; COBOS, 2012; CORTADA, 1998; DÍAZ, 2003; GALINDO, 2002; GARCÍA, 2000; GARCIA, 2004; GIL, 1995; GÓMEZ, 1899; GUARDA, 1990; GUTIÉRREZ et al., 1991; LAORDEN, 2008; LIZAUR et al., 2010; LLAVE, 1911; LUENGO, 2013; MAÑAS, 1985; MARZAL, 1991; MONCADA, 1993; MORA, 1997; MUÑOZ, 1990a; MUÑOZ, 1993c; MUÑOZ, 1993d; MUÑOZ, 1994b; MUÑOZ, 2004; MUÑOZ, 2015; SEGOVIA et al., 2013; VALERA, 1846; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1911a; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1911b; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 2003; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 2005; WAUWERMANS, 1891; WAUWERMANS, 1894.

JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM to MARQUES OF BEDMAR (signed); Madrid, 25 July 1712. SGA.WS, 3003.

Instrucción, 1718.

Real Ordenanza, 1739.

The passing of the Ordenanza de 4 de Julio de 1718, para el Establecimiento, e Instrucción de Intendentes de Provincias, y Exercitos («Ordinance of 4 July 1718 for the Establishment and Instruction of Overseers for the Provinces and Army») printed in Madrid by Juan de Ariztia in 1718, was of key importance in this respect.

MUÑOZ, 2015.

BARBIER, (no year); BERTHAUT, 1902; BLANCHARD, 1979; BLANCHARD, 1981; BRAGARD, 2011; HOFMANN, 2000.

ALBAREDA, 2010; COLLETTA, 1981; GARCÍA, 2003; KAMEN, 2000; MARTÍNEZ et al., 2001; VOLTES, 1991.

BELANDO, 1740-1744; GARCÍA et al. 2013.

For more on certain aspects of cartographic theory and practice concerning the matters dealt with here, see: BALLARD, 1697; BOUSQUET-BRESSOLIER et al., 1995; BUCHOTTE, 1743; BUISSERET, 2004; BUISSERET et al., 1998; GAUTIER, 1687; GIMÉNEZ et al., 2009; HARLEY, 2005; LABOULAIS et al., 2008; MONTANER, 1990; MONTANER et al., 2011; MUÑOZ, 1994a; MUÑOZ, 1999a; MUÑOZ, 2001; MUÑOZ, 2011; MUÑOZ, 2012; RODRÍGUEZ-VILLASANTE, 2011; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1987a; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1987b; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1976; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1993; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1994; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1996; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1999; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 2000; WARMOES et al., 2003.

BONET et al., 1985; CASAS et al., 1996; DÍAZ-MARTA et al., 1987; MARTÍNEZ et al., 2008; OLIVERAS, 1998; PICON, 1988; PICON, 1992; SILVA et al., 2005; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1988.

For more on the role of the Barcelona Academy of Mathematics, see mainly Chapters IV-X of the «Segunda parte: el deleitoso estudio de las matemáticas», in CAPEL et al., 1988, pp. 95-254, especially pages 96-160 and 217-254. Also see the section entitled «La Academia de Matemáticas de Barcelona durante el siglo XVIII», in MUÑOZ et al., 2004, mainly pages 77-115; and MUÑOZ, 2012. Also see «Deuxième partie. Des scientifiques dans le monde militaire», in GALLAND, 2008, pp. 143-236 Other works of interest in this regard: BARCA, 1993; CAPEL, 1982; CAPEL, 2007; D’ORGEIX et al., 2012; MUÑOZ et al., 2004; RIERA, 1977; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 2004.

MUÑOZ, 1992.

Compared to an architect, who may also have championed a process of technical transformation in this field, the engineer – both civil and military – confers greater importance on ensuring continuity between cause and effect than on the project itself. The engineer’s work is also created by and drives toward a response to collective needs. PICON, 1988.

MARTÍNEZ, 1999; MUÑOZ, 1990b; MUÑOZ, 1991; MUÑOZ, 1993a; MUÑOZ, 1993b; MUÑOZ, 1999b; SEVERAL AUTHORS, 1986.

JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM to MARQUES OF BEDMAR (signed); Madrid, 20 July 1712. SGA.WS, 3003.

JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM to the MARQUIS OF CASTELAR, Malaga, 28 July 1722. SGA.WS, 3044.

The COUNT OF MONTEMAR to ALEJANDRO DE REZ, Barcelona, 4 June 1724. SGA.WS, 3012.

ALEJANDRO DE REZ to the COUNT OF MONTEMAR, Barcelona, 6 June 1724. Idem.

The COUNT OF MONTEMAR to JOSÉ RODRIGO, Barcelona, 10 June 1724. Idem.

Anonymous [JOSÉ RODRIGO] to the COUNT OF MONTEMAR; Madrid, 25 June 1724. Idem.

JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM to the DUKE OF MONTEMAR, Barcelona, 1 March 1738. SGA.WS, 3008.

MILITARY MAP-MAKING URGENCY IN EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SPAIN

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25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

MATEO CALABRO to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM

(copy); Ciudadela de Barcelona, 27 February 1738. Idem. (no date), Barcelona, 20 April 1726. Idem.

MATEO CALABRO, (no date), Barcelona, (no year). Idem.

MATEO CALABRO to COUNT OF MONTEMAR, Barcelona, 6 June 1724. SGA.WS, 3012.

MATEO CALABRO to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Barcelona, 10 June 1724. Idem.

MATEO CALABRO to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Barcelona, 26 February 1724. Idem.

MATEO CALABRO to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Barcelona, 10 June 1724. Idem.

JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM to JOSÉ PATIÑO, Barcelona, 19 November 1735. Idem. A good example of Calabro’s preference for pedagogical theory is his Tratado de Fortificación o Arquitectura Militar… RODRÍGUEZ, 1991.

MATEO CALABRO to JORGE PRÓSPERO VERBOOM, Barcelona, 26 February 1724. Idem. SGA.WS, 3012.

AGUSTINA CALABRO to DUKE OF MONTEMAR, Ciudadela de Barcelona, 4 January 1738. Idem.

DUKE OF MONTEMAR to SEBASTIÁN DE LA QUADRA, Madrid, 21 May 1737. SGA.WS, 5836.

MIGUEL MARÍN to the DUKE OF MONTEMAR, Barcelona, 15 March 1738. SGA.WS, 2993.

Ordenanzas, 1768.

MATEO CALABRO,

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5 Methodology Applicable to the Graphic Analysis of Fortification Projects FERNANDO COBOS1 Architect. ICOMOS/ ICOFORT Translation: DAVID HASTING

ABSTRACT

This article explores the possibilities of drawing as a tool for the technical characterization of fortification and explains its use on the studies published by the author in the last 25 years. A drawing-based research methodology is systematized after considering an initial intuitive reflection: if drawing is the key to designing fortifications, drawing should be the key to interpreting them. Various examples are studied in order to analyze the different types of information available, the analysis tools based on drawing accuracy and fortification principles, and the methodological development of various graphic techniques.

KEYWORDS

Bastioned fortification, technical drawing, surveying, line of defence, photo restoration of historical layouts, geometric characterization of fortification.

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METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

In what was possibly the first treatise on modern fortification, Pedro Luis Escrivá wrote: «This science is demonstrative, there are things that cannot be explained without figures»2.

It is this role of drawing, that of explaining and demonstrating rather than representing, that is of paramount interest to us here. Any attempt at a history of fortification, not just a technical history nor one written by architects, requires that drawing be placed at the heart of many questions. Before Escrivá, in his codex on military engineering (the Madrid II Codex) Leonardo da Vinci used drawing to define the layout of the terrain outside the fort in order to determine the volume of earth to be excavated and calculate the yield and average price of the excavation3. For da Vinci, drawing was a project and calculation tool. If we want to understand the designs of military engineers and architects we have to use drawing with the same criteria and function that they do. It is therefore not enough to observe the final layout of a fort or its drawing in an atlas. It’s not enough to map the constructed reality; we need to identify the design mechanism, both if we start from a plan or from a finished building. It is really surprising to see what we can deduce from a design or its modifications simply by calculating and plotting its embrasures, as we did with the town walls in Ibiza or at Berlanga fort. Knowing, as was the case with planimetric surveys of fortresses, what it is we are looking for and the accuracy we need in order to find it is an essential question that is often overlooked. In other cases, it is the drawings and historical documents which provide us with these interpretative keys, either based on drawings with no text which we need to interpret, or on texts without drawings which we can plot to make them clearer4. At the end of the process, the technical characterisa-

LEONARDO DA VINCI. Layout of the glacis, measurement of the levelled ground and calculation of the yield from the excavation of a moat to determine cost. Madrid II Codex. 1504, fols. 10v, 25r, 32v. Spanish National Library.

FIG. 1

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FIG. 2

Study of constructed reality through analysis of defensive fire (Ibiza y Berlanga). COBOS, 2008 and 2014.

tion of a fort is considerably more related to drawing and measurement than it is to the recognition of supposed typical features. Only by drawing and measuring will we be able to identify the enormous differences that exist, for example, between two forts with a square floor plan with four apparently very similar bastions. Thus the first premise behind our work is that we need to understand technical characterisation as a way of overcoming an analysis by type with drawing as our main tools.

Data Graphic and Written Documents In order to establish an approach to graphic analysis of fortification we should first consider the type of data we have. Firstly we have graphic and written documents that we can use in our graphic analysis, in the case of plans and drawings through measurement and georectification processes as well as the transfer to plans, in the case of texts, when referring to measured dimensions and proportions. For example, the measurements of the piecework performed in the bastion of the Magdalena in Fuenterrabia which can still be seen at Simancas and the French plans for the bastion which are held in the Vincennes archive which allow us, with the help of an intermediate drawing, to plot both documents to a known scale, establishing the construction process and chronology of each section of the structure5.

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a

b

FIG. 3a Peñíscola, 1578, España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 09, 059.

FIG. 3b Lisbon, 1581, España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 16, 007.

c FIG. 3c Study of the layout through analysis of enemy fire based on graphic documentation (Lisbon, 1581) and (Peñíscola, 1578) and written documentation (La Goulette, 1574). COBOS, 2000.

However, there are also drawings and written documents that do not describe real situations but rather concepts. Da Vinci, and especially his Madrid II Codex, is a good example of that, although it has not always been correctly interpreted. Curiously, the drawing that might best express Leonardo’s ability to codify concepts hidden in drawings is not in the Madrid II Codex but in the famous and well-studied Codex Atlanticus and specifically his drawing of the Naviglio canal at San Cristoforo6 [FIG. 4]. All the publications – of which there are dozen, although I don’t have the space here to cite them – refer to this drawing by Leonardo da Vinci as a design for Milan’s Grand Canal in front of San Cristoforo church and its water removal solutions. Da Vinci did indeed write in this folio «San Cristoforo Canal, 3 May 1509». However, this only meant that Leonardo was there

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FIG. 4

LEONARDO DA

Codex Atlanticus. Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milano, fol. 1097 R.

VINCI,

on that day when, thinking about this project, he may have drawn this plan which was not meant to be a specific canal construction project but rather a reflection on the concept of hydrostatic pressure. In fact, if we look more closely at the drawing it seeks to compare the different levels of water pressure at the outlet and the distance it travels depending on the height of the water column that the plan shows for each outlet. We know that, through this example and the critical study that we published in 20097 of the Madrid II Codex, that in Leonardo da Vinci’s codices, the text and the drawing are not always related or do not seek to express the same idea. In this codex, we can clearly see that Leonardo used specific projects to express questions of a general nature that he was interested in investigating, «although these speculations are superfluous to the workers, it doesn’t seem advisable to overlook them, as they sometimes produce admiration in speculative minds»8.

In Escrivá’s treatise, the critical study and commentary of which we published in 20009, there are also drawings which do not represent real designs but rather concepts.

The most obvious of these, which Escrivá accompanied with an explanation in the text, is the comparison made between surface area, the acuteness of the flanking angle and the length of the face of the bastion calculated from the layout of the square floor plan compared to a triangular plan [FIG. 5a]. Another example of this conceptual drawing is the design of a fortress whose upper front features a straight flat curtain wall while the lower front has a scissor-wall (tenaille) [FIG. 5b]. This drawing, which we have normally used as a point of reference for the design of hill forts10, nevertheless is a comparison of bastioned fronts as well as being an expression of a concept of design, that of a front consisting of a curtain wall, two opposing flanks and the faces of two bastions, which is essential in the understanding of bastioned fortification and was expressed with total clarity in the seventeenth century. Escrivá also cites concepts expressed in the text but not graphically and which are easier to understand drawn based on the framework we used to explain Escrivá’s idea regarding the design of embrasures at San Telmo – «there is no way that fire from a battery can shoot into the loophole (breaking the wall at A in figure 8), and if it shoots down the loophole (B) the fire cannot function as a battery» [FIG. 5c] – or the example we used to explain the basis for the study regarding the orientation of the forward point of the bastion, namely the defence of the design of Castle Fort Saint Elmo in Malta and the criticism of Ferramolino’s design of the fort at La Goulette [FIG. 5d].

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FIGS. 5a & b

PEDRO LUIS

ESCRIVÁ,

drawings from Apología en excusación y favor de las fábricas del Reyno de Nápoles, 1538.

a

b

c

d

FIG. 5c Analysis of Escrivá’s theory on the difficulty of entering the embrasures of Castle Saint Elmo in Naples. Prepared by the author.

FIG. 5d Analysis of Escrivá’s theory on the orientation of the forward points of the fortification towards the enemy battery applied to Ferramolino’s design for La Goulette, Escrivá’s design for Castle Saint Elmo in Naples and Pedro Prado’s design for Fort Saint Elmo in Malta. Prepared by the author.

The Existing Reality, the Physical Setting and the Building We also have the constructed reality, the urban setting, the territory and our ability to measure and represent it. Even with accurate historical plans at one’s disposal, any study which seeks to make progress in this area needs to contrast the project and its documentation with the existing reality. In the case of fortresses from the first Spanish Renaissance, there was a total absence of sufficiently accurate plans when we embarked on these studies 25 years ago. If we want to understand fortification from this period, we need to examine the reasonably accurate plans for the castles at Mota, Coca and Salsas11.

In many cases, such a precise understanding required that a large number of the important fortresses from the period were excavated or cleared and therefore accessible. It can therefore be said that without the clearing and excavation work at key buildings such as Mota, Behovia, Fuenterrabia and Arevalo12 or the surveying and preparation of scale drawings that we have undertaken or had done for us over these two and a half decades, as well as at other key sites, such as the bastions at the Alhambra in Granada, at Carmona and Niebla13, we would not have the necessary resources for analysis, in a field in which stylistic allegiance is never a suitable tool to work with14.

On a greater scale, and in terms of the major projects undertaken in the late 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, for which we have historical plans that are far more sophisticated and accurate, the generalisation and availability of surveying via aerial orthophotography and the precision offered by georeferencing by satellite over the past ten

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years has given us an extraordinary tool which allows us to compare historical plans and the constructed reality, something which had previously been an extremely complex task.

Tools We use two basic tools in our graphic analysis with these two data types. Graphic representation, dependent on the reliability of the document and the accuracy of our survey and the technical principals of fortification which explain layout even though the plans do not reflect this or orientate us toward what we need to define in our surveying.

The Reliability of Graphic Documentation The surveying of Ibiza’s Renaissance city walls, which included the master plan that we drew up in 2000, allowed us to define both the plan and elevation views, as well as the grade line of the fortifications’ embrasures15. This study of the flanking fire revealed data from the technical principals of fortification from this period, such as the differences in the openings on the two embrasures on each flank, orientated toward the curtain wall and toward the face of the opposite bastion and the presence of a single embrasure in the most exposed flank of the bastion at Santa Lucia, as Escrivá recommended. It also allows us to interpret the references that the project engineer Calvi gave regarding the dissociation between the grade line of the bulwark and the opening on the embrasure on the opposing flank through the chamfering of the rock (and the alteration to this grade line since construction). Finally, we were able to confirm that after engineer Fratin’s extension and additions to the Santa Lucia semi-bastion (known in Ibiza as the Revellin), the opposing embrasures had not been modified and the resulting opening could not cover the new layout, which explains why some engineers from later centuries insisted on reforming these firing positions.

The problem of the layout in relation to the direction of enemy fire is one of the areas where graphic analysis is essential in order to understand the relationship between available sources and the principals of fortification. In the plan of Peñiscola [FIG. 3a], we see a representation of a debate between Bautista Antonelli, who defended Vespasiano Gonzaga’s layout, and Fratin, who sought to reform it. In this case, we have both the plan that illustrates the modification and Antonelli’s text which clearly explains the exposure to enemy fire, which could enter the embrasures, that the change represented16.

The problem is the same as that regarding the assault cannons in front of São Julião da Barra fort near Lisbon in 1581 [FIG. 3b], except in this case there is no explanatory text and we have to deduce meaning from what we know of the debate surrounding this matter at the time17. Finally, we have the drawing that we have produced to explain why La Goulette was lost in 1574, due to the fact that its design meant that the Turks could fire into the embrasures on the flanks. The source here is a detailed written account of the assault process that the Duke of Alba received from an informant that has allowed us to graphically represent the defensive problem [FIG. 3c] using period plans for our analysis18.

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FIG. 6 Seventeenth century fortification plans. COBOS, 2005.

The Technical Principles of Fortification We have finally been able to use drawing to graphically express certain basic concepts of fortification which would otherwise be difficult to understand. The schema showing the variations which we have produced to explain seventeenth century fortification19 [FIG. 6] covers certain aspects that were crucial in determining designs from this period. On the one hand, we have the variation of the flanked angle in relation to the use of the second flank or the measurement of the primary flank, while on the other is a parallel debate concerning measurement variations to the line of defence if we take the side of the polygon as a fixed measurement or the variation in the measurement of the side of the polygon if the fixed measurement was the line of defence. This work, apparently groundbreaking in terms of studies of fortification was curiously based on the graphic synthesis of analysis of the bastioned front taken from the side of the polygon understood as the measurement between the two principal lines, the evolution of Escrivá’s conceptual representation system which appears thus for the first time in Diego González de Medina Barba’s 1599 treatise Examen de Fortificacion20 which would later be used prolifically throughout the seventeenth century.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

Using the different types of data and analysis tools at our disposal, there are a number of methods that we can employ in our graphic analysis of fortifications. We have mainly used three in this research: photo restoration of historical layouts compared to existing reality, drawing as comparative analysis and technical characterisation through the use of drawing tools. The following are a few examples of this.

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Photo Restoration Applying historical plans to a true-to-scale representation of the current terrain in order to recognise or analyse their design or remains is a strategy that has considerable potential.

In the Master Plan for the border fortresses along the River Minho21, for the first time we had reasonably accurate continuous satellite surveying of the terrain and the dozens of fortifications built in the seventeenth century along the frontier. We also had a GPS topography system that allowed us to identify the «valleys and hills» that the fortifications had become in the dense scrub of the Galician highlands. The work process [FIG. 7] allowed us to georeference the terrain of historic sites using a morphology that

Goián fortified complex in the River Minho cross-border fortification Master Plan. COBOS y 2005. The historical map, attributed to Miguel de Lescol and dated circa 1664, belongs to the CSIC Collection from the Lisbon National Library. B.N.L., D274V. FIG. 7

HOYUELA,

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a b

FIGS. 8a and 8b Design of Ciudad Rodrigo (a) and projects at Gallegos de Argañán (b). COBOS, 2012 y 2013.

The historical map of Ciudad Rodrigo, 1709, Atlas Masse. Archives du Génie.

Castillo de Vincennes, Paris.

The historical maps of Gallegos de Argañán, dated 1651, belong to AGS. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD,68,021 y MPD, 68, 020.

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was more recognisable, defining a site to be protected without the need for an archaeological intervention that, given the nature of the landscape in which the fortifications were situated, would not have made a great deal of sense. The final result meant we could see the impression left among the hills, thickets and smallholdings of dozens of large fortifications, indiscernible in many cases from within the woods and forests and only perceptible when the ferns and mosses that cover the beds of the old moats also pick out the primitive star shape of a fortress below the eucalyptus trees.

Another interesting case using this analysis method of updating historic plans using current orthophotographs is the recent analysis of the layout of Ciudad Rodrigo22 based on a collection of plans from the early eighteenth century, the majority of which are French. They establish which parts of the current walls are original and in what order the subsequent fortification phases were added from the period of the War of the Spanish Succession. If the town walls in Ciudad Rodrigo [FIG. 8a] conserve enough remains to accurately identify each historic plan, in the case of Gallegos de Argañan23 and its fort from the mid-seventeenth century which no longer stands, the project plan by the engineer Santans y Tapia for a larger fortress shows enough of the parish church, still in use, to allow us to replot the layout of the disappeared fort and that of the projected structure [FIG. 8b].

Comparative Analysis The basic application of comparative analysis is in typological study, although, as we have said previously, graphic analysis of fortification is rather more complex than a typological study of a morphological nature and a conventional description. In a study of fortification, it makes no sense to classify fortifications by their simple morphological characteristics.

Two castles with a square floor plan and four bastions built in the same period may reflect concepts that are completely different although separated by a hundred years’ difference, such as L’Aquila castle in Italy and the Castillo de San Marcos in Florida. The similarity in the design of the two is, nevertheless, pure coincidence. The design of a bastioned fort is based more in questions of measurement, of angles and the proportion between these parts than in questions of form. The biggest mistakes when defining a fortification as having a supposedly Italian design because it has bastions, or as in the Vauban model, because it has revellines or lunettes, is the result of giving far greater importance to formal as opposed than geometric analysis.

Once the typological analysis has been dealt with, one of the main virtues of comparative graphic analysis is that of scale analysis. In our first research into Renaissance Castles24, where we had accurate plans of fortresses at Mota, Coca and Salsas, the first surprise was the comparison with their Italian counterparts at Ostia and Mondavio, both much smaller, but also the evolution of subsequent designs with turrets at the corners and frontal bastions on Spanish fortresses from the first Renaissance [FIG. 9]. In a construction type that is so dependent on the range of firearms and the enormous construction costs they represent, the scale, the real size with respect to their equivalents, always represents an expression of commitment between the fortress’s ability to resist enemy fire and the ability of the constructors to finance the necessary work.

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Comparison of plans for Italian and Spanish fortifications from the first Renaissance. COBOS, 1998 y 2000.

Historical drawings: FRANCISCO DE HOLANDA. Vista de Fuenterrabía, Spanish national Heritage, El Escorial Library (top).

And Traça de la fortaleza de Pamplona, ¿1538? España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 13, 54 (bottom).

FIG. 9

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FIG. 10

Royal forts on the Spanish - Portuguese border. FERNANDO COBOS ESTUDIO ARQUITECTURA, 2012.

A mixed example of comparative analysis of scale is based on an initial classification of types, as we used to analyse fortifications on the Portuguese border, simultaneously studying both sides25. Our research sought to compare ex-novo and practically ex-novo fortified cities and adapted medieval urban areas, royal forts [FIG. 10], small forts and strongpoints in separate groups, with a notable coincidence in the size of the equivalent parts due not only to variations of scale based on treatises from the period that are common to both sides of the border, but also – even in the case of the cities – to a an odd equilibrium between the Portuguese examples, which increased in size enormously from very small nuclei, and their Spanish counterparts, where cities sacrificed their slum neighbourhoods, losing size and population, in order to build their defences26.

The third model of comparative analysis was applied to successive projects in the same town, in this case Ciudad Rodrigo27, inspired by a curious comparative debate that Juán Martín Cermeño initiated by comparing his project to those undertaken by Gaber and Moreau, which Moreau fuelled by simultaneously drawing two of his projects [FIG. 11a] on the same plan28. In a town like Ciudad Rodrigo, where we still have dozens of projects, many of which use the well-known system of paper tabs that can be lifted, the temptation to use georeferencing on a current orthophotograph and superimpose all plotting [FIG. 11d] becomes a first-rate instrument of research which allows the footprints left by these largely under-documented fortifications to be identified, as was the case with the British strongpoints from the Napoleonic Wars.

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a

b

FIG. 11a PEDRO MOREAU. Plano de Ciudad Rodrigo con sus contornos donde se ve demostrado la fortificación que oy subsiste y dos proyectos... for Ciudad Rodrigo. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 13, 136.

FIG. 11b FIG. 11c

FIG. 11d

132

ANTONIO GABER.

Project for Ciudad Rodrigo. Spain. CGE. ArE-T.7-C.3-385.

JUAN MARTÍN CERMEÑO.

Project for Ciudad Rodrigo. Spain. CGE. ArE-T.7-C.3-383.

Ciudad Rodrigo, 1735-1766, comparative study of Moreau’s, Gaber’s and Cermeño’s projects. COBOS, 2013.

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c

Technical Characterisation Drawing as an instrument of analysis of the technical characterisation of a fort is a very useful tool whose basis lies in contrasting constructed reality with descriptive documents of technical solutions and graphic documents that show geometric models and proposals, or with the principles and rules of fortification whose recognition in a specific project allows it to be accurately characterised in terms of a particular period or trend. In the case of research into the Berlanga design29, the aim was to establish a connection between that which was built and the instructions given by the master builder López de Isturizaga for Pamplona castle with which Berlanga was closely related due to the master builder working on both projects.

In the case of Escrivá’s study of the layout at L’Aquila Castle30 based on the survey of the fort, it sought to verify the application of the principles that Escrivá established in his treatise with respect to the positioning of embrasures and what they covered and left exposed: «They serve their purpose raking the curtain they defend from length to length without being exposed to flanking fire….the more screened they are and less open at the sides the better they are».

Research into the real layout curiously does not only analyse the modifications of the ideal design, such as the overhanging edge of the faces of the two bastions without modifying the breadth of the flank, without testing how the schematic, almost infantile design

FIG. 12

Technical analysis of the layout of Berlanga Castle. COBOS, 2014.

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FIG. 13

Analysis of firing lines at L’Aquila Castle. COBOS, 2014.

that is shown in the 1538 design accurately reflects the proportions and angles of the layout that Escrivá had given his castle in 153431. In other words, we can verify the relationship between the constructed reality and the principles and drawings of the Treatise.

This discovery of the unsuspected accuracy of the apparently schematic drawings from Escrivá’s treatise led us to research into other drawings from the same Treatise, especially reflections on the ideal layout32 and comparison between the square and heptagonal floor plans. The foundation of Escrivá’s discourse lies in the fixed nature of the line of defence as we have explained33. We can confirm that when Escrivá proposed the comparison of the two forts that «occupy the same space», what he was in fact comparing was a square and a circle in the same surface area that defined the external borders of both fortresses.

It is curious to reflect not only on the problem of the squaring of the circle that appears throughout the Renaissance34, but also on the use of the external polygon to define the size of the fort, which at such an early time was possibly a completely new development35.

In Escrivá’s case there is also a further significant conclusion to be drawn – how the characterisation study led to recognition of a geometric relationship, much deeper than suspected, between the design of L’Aquila and the reference to the quadrangular fortifications in the 1538 Treatise. This means that in the Treatise, composed as a dialogue with the commander, Escrivá defended his new design at San Telmo, while the commoners who criticised it also represented Escrivá who designed L’Aquila. Thus his posture of not recognising universally valid models would be the true objective of the text, constructed as a debate with himself, before moving on to defend his tenailled design, as the Italian bibliography has simplistically interpreted it.

In the case of Almeida, however, analysis of the almost perfect hexagonal layout36, the characterisation of the design which has been interpreted without a great deal of substance from the perspective of French and Dutch models, as well as referring to the initial 7-sided plans which were subsequently scaled back for economic problems [FIG. 15]. The main problem in studying the «original layout» of Almeida was that the first

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Comparative study of the layout of L’Aquila Castle (Escrivá 1534) and the fort with four bastions in his 1538 Treatise. COBOS, 2014.

FIG. 14

known plan did not really match the constructed reality, where we suspected that forward defensive walls and moats were added later after Spanish, French and English attacks in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, with further modifications due to damage to various sections to the south-west perimeter. Once it had been determined which plans were the most reliable and which section was the least altered (which is, in itself, a synthesis of the documentary study of field measurement) we rectified the layout, meaning we can establish a relationship between the real layout and ideal reference layout, discounting the theory of the heptagonal design simply by measuring angles and checking other aspects, such as the preference for having a second flank, rejecting the possibility of right flanked angles, which would rule de Ville out as the designer, despite the main gate façade referring directly to his treatise.

Geometric analysis of the layout of the Castle Fortress of Almeida with respect to the regular reference design. COBOS, 2013.

FIG. 15

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Metric analysis of the design of the Castle Fortress of Almeida in relation to the dimensions set out in contemporary treatises, COBOS, 2013 (left). Graphic variation of fortification dimensions based on the side of the polygon in SANTANS Y TAPIA’s treatise. Brussels, 1644 (centre). Principal lines for a fortification in DIEGO GONZÁLEZ DE MEDINA BARBA’s, Examen de Fortificación. Madrid, 1599 (right).

FIG. 16

Finally, the analysis of the layout of the Castle Fortress of Almeida highlights other problems which had not been considered before and which represented a new methodological advance. The problem with comparing ideal regular polygons with real irregular polygons is deciding which side or vertex you use to make them coincide. In practice, the rule applied in irregular fortification which advises that the design should follow the regular layout as closely as possible was not applied, as many people believe, to the complete polygon (as if you adjust on one side, on the opposite side the differences are such that no comparison is possible). However, if it is applied to each defined front between the two principal lines which converge from the two points of the bastions in the centre or theoretical centres of the reference polygon. This aspect, reflected in the treatises of the period, in the case of Almeida allows a metric characterisation of the section, having identified the most «regular» sides.

The graphic schemata of the front of the Almeida fortress could be included within plans in treatises from the period [FIG. 16], once converted to the same scale from incredibly diverse units of measurement and comparing curtain walls, faces, flanks and angles.

Thus the layout at Almeida appears as far from Marolois as it does from De Ville while being close to the layouts of Fritach and Santans y Tapia, following the line of Spanish Flanders which the Jesuits were spreading around the world at the time. This fitted the characterisation of border fortifications from the period and the work of Father Stafford at Imperial College in Lisbon37 prior to 1640 or, after the Portuguese uprising, of Father Cosmander. Notice the paradox, that the fortress at Elvas is defined as Dutch38 simply because the architect Father Cosmander was born in a town that is now part of Holland (when this region belonged to the Spanish crown), ignoring the fact that he was a Jesuit priest who had trained at the Catholic University of Leuven in the Spanish Netherlands, an important seat of learning and dissemination of mathematics and military engineering at that time39.

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NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

fernandocobosestudio@gmail.com COBOS et al., 2000.

COBOS, 2009b.

See the illustrated commentaries of Escrivá’s study in the following pages.

COBOS and CASTRO, 2000a, p. 233.

Leonardo da Vinci Codex Atlanticus. BA Milano (fol. 1097 R).

COBOS, 2009b.

COBOS, 2009b, p. 186.

COBOS et al., 2000.

COBOS, 2011a.

COBOS and CASTRO, 1998a.

See references in COBOS, 2005.

Especially the work by ANTONIO ALMAGRO and his team on examples in Andalucia. Other references in COBOS, 2005.

In comparison with the history of religious architecture, which as well as having the support that comes from style recognition, developed surveying and typological study much more than military architecture, the landscape value of castles is expressed much better in paintings and prints than in architectural plans. COBOS, 2014b.

COBOS and CÁMARA, 2008.

COBOS et al., 2000, p. 198.

COBOS et al., 2000, p. 200.

COBOS and CASTRO, 2000b, p. 263.

COBOS, 2005a.

COBOS, 2012, p. 43.

COBOS and HOYUELA, 2005; COBOS and HOYUELA, 2010.

COBOS and CAMPOS, 2013, pp. 154-161.

COBOS, 2009a; COBOS, 2011.

COBOS, 2004 and 2004b, pp. 225-267.

On behalf of the Castilla y León regional government. Unpublished.

COBOS and CAMPOS, 2013, pp. 106-114.

COBOS and CAMPOS, 2013, pp. 186-193.

COBOS, 2005a and 2005b.

COBOS, 2014.

COBOS, 2014a.

Ibídem.

Ibídem.

COBOS, 2004a.

COBOS, 2009b.

Reflections on the size of the forts based on the determination of the external polygon appear in the seventeenth century.

COBOS and CAMPOS, 2013, pp. 144-149.

CARITA, 2014; COBOS, 2013.

For more on Dutch theory, albeit with a certain intention to disregard not only the Spanish experience but also, paradoxically, the Portuguese experience prior to 1640, see BUCHO, 2011.

Regarding this question on the Portuguese border, see COBOS and CAMPOS, 2013, pp. 130-137; for more on fortification and the Jesuits, see DE LUCCA, 2012.

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BUCHO, D.

(2011), Métodos e Escolas de Fortificação Abaluartada em Elvas, Lisbon, Edições Colibri.

CARITA, R.

(2014), «O ensino das matemáticas nos colégios jesuitas de Portugal» CEAMA, nº 11, Almeida (Portu-

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COBOS, F. and CASTRO, J.J. DE COBOS, F. and CASTRO, J.

(1998a), Castilla y León: Castillos y fortalezas. Leon.

(2000a), «Diseño y desarrollo técnico de las fortificaciones de transición españolas», in C.

J. HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ (coord.), COBOS, F. and CASTRO, J. SÁNCHEZ (coord.),

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(2000b), «El debate en la fortificación del Imperio de Carlos V», in C. J. HERNANDO

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(2000), Luis Escrivá, su Apología y la Fortificación Imperial. Va-

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COBOS, F. (2004), «Tecniche ossidionali e difensive aragonesi e spagnole» in Actas del congreso internacional Castel

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COBOS, F.

(2004a), «La formulación de los principios de la Fortificación abaluartada», in Técnica e ingeniería en

España: El renacimiento. Manuel Silva, ed. Zaragoza.

COBOS, F.

(2004b), «Los orígenes de la Escuela Española de Fortificación del primer Renacimiento», in Artillería

y Fortificaciones en la Corona de Castilla durante el reinado de Isabel la Católica, 1474-1504. Ed. Aurelio Valdés.

Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, Centro de Publicaciones.

COBOS, F.

(2005), «La fortificación española del primer renacimiento. Entre la arqueología de la arquitectura y la

arquitectura de papel» in Actas del Congreso internacional Ciudades Fortificadas. Pamplona.

COBOS, F.

(2005a), «La Fortificación Española en los siglos XVII y XVIII: Vauban sin Vauban y contra Vauban», in

Técnica e ingeniería en España: El Siglo de las Luces, Volume II. Manuel Silva, ed. Zaragoza.

COBOS, F.

(2005b), «Los Ingenieros, las Experiencias y los Escenarios de la Arquitectura Militar Española en el

S.XVII» & «Los Sistemas de Fortificación como Patrimonio Heredado», in A. CÁMARA MUÑOZ (coord.) Los ingenieros militares de la monarquía hispánica en los siglos XVII y XVIII, Madrid, Ministerio de Defensa - Asociación Española de Amigos de los Castillos - Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica.

(2005), «Metodología de Estudio e intervención del Plan Director de las Fortalezas

COBOS, F. and HOYUELA, A.

Fronterizas del Bajo Miño», in Actas del tercer congreso de castillología ibérica. Guadalajara.

COBOS, F. and CÁMARA, A. COBOS, F.

(2008), De la fortificación de Yviça. Eivissa: Editorial Mediterrània Ibiza.

(2009a): «Almeida on the Raia. Report on the fortifications of the Portuguese border line for its desig-

nation as a candidate for world heritage site» in CEAMA, nº4. Almeida.

COBOS, F.

(2009b), «Leonardo ingeniero y su contexto: Una guía de lectura crítica del Códice Madrid II», in Los

Manuscritos de Leonardo da Vinci de la BNE: Codex Madrid I (Ms. 8937) and Codex Madrid II (Ms. 8936), first critical edition and the facsimile edition. Madrid.

COBOS, F. and HOYUELA, A.

(2010), «Plano Director das fortalezas Transfronteriças do Baixo Minho», in CEAMA,

nº 5. Almeida (Portugal).

COBOS, F.

(2011), «Metodología para la caracterización tipológica y tecnológica de la fortificación de la raya de

Portugal como sistema», in CEAMA, nº 8. Almeida.

COBOS, F.

(2011a): «Engineers, treatises and fortification projects: a transfer of experiences betwen Europe and

America», in The Fortified Heritage: a Transatlantic Relationship. Edition published by P. CHIAS and T. ABAD, Alcalá de Henares: University of Alcalá.

COBOS, F.

(2012), Las escuelas de fortificación hispánicas en los siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII. Segovia: Patronato del Al-

cázar de Segovia.

COBOS, F. (2013), «Henriques de Villegas, the first great Portuguese treatise writer on Fortification in the 17th cen-

tury», CEAMA, nº 10, Almeida (Portugal).

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COBOS, F. and CAMPOS, J.

(2013), Almeida/ Ciudad Rodrigo, la fortificación de la Raya Central. Salamanca: The

Cross-Border Consortium of Walled Cities.

COBOS, F. (2014), «Claves de interpretación de la fortaleza renacentista de Berlanga», in R. DE PABLO and C. SANTOS

(eds.), El castillo de Berlanga. Siglos de Historia en torno a sus murallas, Berlanga de Duero, Asociación de Amigos del Castillo de Berlanga.

COBOS, F. (2014a), A.

«Pedro luis Escrivá y el primer tratado de fortificación moderna. Naples, 1538», in A. CAMARA,

and B. REVUELTA (coords.), Ingenieros del Renacimiento, Madrid, Fundación Juanelo Turriano.

COBOS, F.

(2014b), “Fuentes de estudio y valoración de la arquitectura defensiva”, in Patrimonio Cultural del Es-

paña nº 9. Arquitectura defensiva. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Madrid.

DE LUCCA, D.

(2012), Jesuits and Fortifications: The Contribution of the Jesuits to Military Architecture in the

Baroque Age, Leiden, Brill Publishers.

Back to Contents

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II DESCRIBING FRONTIERS

6 Keeping Secrets and Mapping Frontiers: Government and Image in the Spanish Monarchy 1

CARLOS JOSÉ HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ 2 Universidad de Valladolid Translation: MARGARET CLARK

ABSTRACT

This chapter addresses the relationships between frontier, drawing and secrecy in Spain’s Habsburg monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Those relationships were the outcome of the criteria legitimising expansion as well as of the fluctuating priorities around defence by land or by sea and hence around the role of bastioned fortification.

Such structures crystallised the construction of military, legal and symbolic frontiers until that conceit was forsaken in twentieth century thinking, historiography and imagery. The political dimension of space which, as Braudel noted, was the primary challenge facing an expansion-minded monarchy, can only be reconstructed from a global perspective. To broach the frontier in the Habsburg court and kingdoms is to broach power as a dialectical interplay of interests, resources and values. Thus viewed, the frontier is a ductile, fluid conceit which, in its stark contrast to the stony immobility of fortifications, questions the applicability of anachronistic notions such as «strategy» and identifies the need to revisit today’s criteria around sovereignty and «propaganda». Power must be viewed in keeping with the values of a political society radically different from our own in every respect, beginning with ceremonial imagery that ultimately affected the portrayal of frontiers and fortifications. Set against courtly rhetoric, the secrecy that shrouded military engineers’ drawings bears witness both to a technique for exercising power in competition with others and to a new approach to reality.

KEYWORDS

Frontier, drawing, secrecy, fortifications, Spanish monarchy, image, court, engineers, House of Habsburg, Pyrenees.

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«I SHALL PASS FORTS AND CROSS FRONTIERS»

In his «Spiritual Canticle», which he began to write in 1578, St John of the Cross attests to the awareness of territorial bounds that characterised his age, alternately evoking nature’s and humanity’s works: Along sea and strand shall I go / No flowers shall I pluck / nor beasts shall I fear / and I shall pass forts and cross frontiers. The energy in the verbs «go», «pass» and «cross» links the spatial symbolism of «mountains and strands» to the «forts and frontiers» in the same verse. The soul seeks a reality that exists beyond body and matter, although as in any initiation voyage, crossing a boundary involves moving into the mystery-riven unknown. The poet explains that he calls the «devils» «forts, because they strive to stand in the way of the spiritual road». And he says that the soul will «cross the frontiers», which he defines as «the natural resistance and rebellion of the flesh against the spirit...»3. This perspective of a broader horizon superseded an earlier analogy in which the soul dwelt in a castle. That image had been modernised by Erasmus who contended that the devil «undermining [...] stealeth on us unaware» and Pedro Mexia who compared «the weave and structure of the human body» to a «transposition or likeness of the world wide» in which «man’s head [is] superior to the rest [...] like a fortress in a city»4. The association of secrecy, drawing or design and fortress represented power in a new dimension that could not be ignored even in spiritual literature.

The metaphor of the soldier in spiritual battle (adopted by St Ignatius and other authors based on Prudentius’s Psychomachia) would be used, for instance, by Portuguese writer Francisco de Holanda to convert fortress designing into a religious mission5. St Teresa of Avila placed the soul’s habitat in a more conventional «interior castle» (with diamond walls clad with palatial magnificence according to widespread allegorical tradition6). John of the Cross’s fort and frontier enlarged on the metaphors commonly found in books of chivalry7 (which nonetheless contained descriptions of military engineering, as in Antonio de Torquemada’s Olivante de Laura published in 15648) and earlier conventions such as Benedictine monk Gonzalo de Arredondo’s 1528 «impregnable castle» (Castillo inexpugnable9). St John’s nude contemporary images depicted the immediacy of the political and architectural realities prevailing in the reign of Philip II, the builder king intent upon enclosing spaces in a world whose destiny he believed had been commended to him by the Creator. In keeping with that vision, shared by most of his subjects, warfare was versified, among others by Captain Francisco de Aldana. Before dying in battle alongside King Sebastian of Portugal in remote North African Alcazarquivir, he wrote a poem dedicated to the Spanish monarch that described an overarching theory for the defence of the peninsular frontiers. Under his premise, the six factors that would afford resistance against any armed warrior included soldiers and their experienced minds, a strong fortress city with moat and traverse, and a protected site where nature itself would do battle10. A monarchy which, like the Christian’s soul, was under siege erected new fortresses to defend its innermost and outermost frontiers. The Earth thus incarnated was assigned a providential mission, although the constant felling of natural and human barriers rendered domination as unstable as a river that routinely overflows its banks.

St John of the Cross’s mystical challenge to conquer space was sympathetic with the scientific experimentation conducted by cartographers and draughtsmen seeped in em-

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blematic culture11. They both sublimated the chivalrous zeal expressed in the maxim composed by Milanese humanist and physician Luigi Marliano for young Charles I on the occasion of a meeting of the Order of the Golden Fleece at Brussels in 1516.

His Plus oultre was soon erroneously Latinised as Plus ultra and translated into German as Noch weiter12. In a second reading, that maxim was identified with the expansion of the monarchy during the emperor’s reign and with the image of the globe that had already been adopted as one of the imperial symbols13. A medal struck FIG. 1 NON SVFFICIT ORBIS. Philip II medal, ca after the annexation of Portugal in 1580 1580. Numismatic Portuguese Museum, Lisbon. depicted an unbridled horse galloping across a globe with carefully embossed meridians under the legend, Non svfficit orbis, meant to symbolise the attainment of such ambitious goals. That portrayal of motion represented the union of space and time which, as Braudel14 explained, was addressed to greater effect by the Spanish monarchy than by its contenders. Endless motion seemed to embody what Drake’s buccaneers called the King of Spain’s and his nation’s «insatiable ambition», when in 1586 they found that provocative image in the Governor of Santo Domingo’s palace15. One of Drake’s men copied it in a drawing that also reproduced the Prudent King’s first device: Nec spe nec metv, whose moral meaning, «neither out of hope nor out of fear» could be interpreted as a reference to the defensive needs generated by enlargement policies. Nonetheless, that meaning paled in comparison to the excess inherent in the image stolen by the English privateers. The drawing, in which the emblem was overlaid on the Spanish coat of arms in a map of the capital of La Española during the English attack, was intended as political denunciation. While this was a celebratory symbol, other drawings drafted during Drake’s same expedition depicted the sturdy coastal defence system erected in the Spanish Indies. In contrast to the dynamic impetus of the equestrian emblem, the staid immobility of the fortresses spied upon represented a compendium of military art and hence the foremost incarnation of spatial measurement, which was inseparable from the depiction of space on paper, canvas or other media.

Before geometry was certitude and politics dogma, when spatial measurement was a challenge and power rested on transcendental truth, merely imagining the bounds of a territory, even to deny them, was an avowal of strength and organisation. That was why maps were drawn in conjunction with the designs for fortresses. In theory and in practice (with the uncertainties and contradictions inherent in depiction), strongholds were sited in valleys, on mountain tops, along rivers and in meadows, to custody more precise although vulnerable boundaries, just as the body protected the soul against its enemies in St John’s mystical vision. The political persona in traditional society, scornfully termed the ancien régime in arrogant bourgeois parlance, was always on the alert, intensifying

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FIG. 2 Engraving by Baptista Boazio in 1588 depicting Drake’s assault on Santo Domingo and the NEC SPE NEC METU emblem, taken from a drawing made by one of Drake’s men in 1586. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

his guard to defend positions constantly challenged by other political entities across a border conceived, drawn and built on land that gradually became landscape16.

The symbiosis between territorial bounds and construction was so tight that, once command over the world had been consummated, the border continued to be associated with the image of a castle or fortress: a literary device used to express the isolation of contemporary humanity, deprived of the system of values that raised strongholds on land and in the soul. That would explain the desolation of the deserto dei tartari so obsessively scrutinised by Dino Buzzati’s officer in 1940 from a useless fortress, on «un tratto di frontiera morta […] che non da pensiero…»17. Buzzati’s fortress was preceded 5 years earlier by Kafka’s posthumous castle, «whose insecure, irregular, broken battlements bit into the blue sky and seemed to have been designed by a careless or cowardly child»; an existential labyrinth, a confusing, Medievalised construction still seeped in religious symbolism, where the surveyor discovered the futility of his trade in a world where all sense of mensuration had been lost18. Kafka’s vision, in turn, was countered by the humanistic metaphor in another posthumous and unfinished work, Saint-Exupéry’s Citadelle published in 1948 and likewise set in the solitude of the desert. Here, however, solitary space was invoked in opposition to the spiritual home found by building, alluding to certainties identified for centuries with the Augustinian City of God but since lost19.

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The failure of modern fortifications in the world wars and the mass destruction of cities, dragged out due to the drastic shifting of boundaries in Europe, also prompted new philosophical reflection. In 1951 Heidegger attempted in his Being and Time to determine the relationship between being and space through the idea of habitation, delimited by the Greek conceits péras and órismos, to define the two sides of the border as the end and beginning of reality, inferring that there is a within and a without that likewise need to be measured20. The European convulsions that induced such musings made the border a historiographic object, from Lucien Febvre with his pioneering works on Franco Condado and the Rhine21 to Carl Schmitt with his study on the power of the land and the sea in the trail blazed in empire building. Borders were thus conceived as a nomos, understood to be a jurisdictional, political and moral limit defined by mensuration, which by that time had hypertrophied under the thrust of technology and faded from thought22.

Whilst the twentieth century interest in territorial limits was driven by intensified nationalism in the wake of the historical geography of the Annales and the new German science of geopolitics23, as we enter a new century an apparently contrary situation has inspired renewed enthusiasm for the history of boundaries and the social variations on that theme24. The crisis of the European nation-state justifies the pursuit of evidence of the inconsistency of national realities formerly regarded as inalterable, given the presumed porosity of borders and confines. Some historians, with self-attributed divine powers (especially in certain regions of Spain) aim to create history by denial, betrayal or concealment, while real history, wedded to geography, towers over the horizon in the inescapable silhouette of mountain ranges.

The Pyrenees constitute a paradigmatic example. The object of fluctuating interest underlain by national realities delimited by natural boundaries25, in the twentieth century these mountains were attributed a number of political-literary interpretations that aimed to quell romantic fantasies26, still evoked as late as 1959, in a metaphysical vein, by images such as René Magritte’s Le Chateau des Pyrenees. A plastic rendition of the platitude «castles in Spain/castles in the air», this painting also elicits the fortress as an abstract idea (using a construction with a suspicious likeness to the Medieval pastiche at Carcassonne) associated with a symbolic boundary that, like modern humans’ certainties, fades while challenging the most robust features of land and sea. Its ironic flight, in open contradiction to architecture’s mythical firmitas27, is reminiscent of the city in Aristophanes’s The Birds, Calderón’s Castillo de Lindabridis, Swift’s Laputa or the delirious utopian Flying City imagined in 1928 by Gueorgui Krutikov, apotheosis of communist deracination.

The diversity of readings and messages of what appears to herald the continental literary rift found in Saramago’s The stone raft overlays the complexity of Pyrenees space, defended in so-called modern times with the most advanced military and cartographic resources in the labyrinthine geology of mountain passes and in fortified foothills, from Salsas to Jaca, Pamplona and Fuenterrabía. The designs drafted by Tiburzio Spannochi for Philip II reflected the need for drawings to build boundaries28.

Even as late as 1700, after the attempt to suppress the political strife that arose around the change from the Habsburg to the Bourbon dynasty, the formulation of which is attributed to Ambassador Castelldosrius or Louis XIV himself, the Pyrenees border regained its status as the first line of defence. Decades prior to the construction of the

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huge San Fernando fort at Figueras, that status was reflected in a play entitled Las Amazonas de España, written in 1720 by José de Cañizares to be staged in Philip V’s court with music by Giaccomo Faco. The women warriors (associated with borders since classical Greek times) encountered by Hannibal when he crossed the Pyrenees (according to Plutarch) symbolised support for Isabel de Farnesio’s political ambitions, while invoking the military significance of a mountainous frontier. That vision was associated with engineering design in the form of a compass and a sphere depicted amongst the books in the Amazon Queen’s cabinet as an attribute of majesty identified with geometry- and constructionmediated defence of peninsular space29.

The sphere alluded to an ancient symbol of sovereignty modFIG. 3 RENÉ MAGRITTE. Le château des Pyrénees, 1959: Israel Muernised by universality30, a new seum, Jerusalem. conceit spawned by cartographic progress and mirrored in the political cosmology portrayed in several series of royal tapestries31. The compass, in turn, along with the angle square and other objects, was identified with both architecture32 and the symbolic fundamentals of the res publica as a whole. As Alberti noted, architecture served as an example of the capacity to spiritualise nature through rules whose rationale hinged on time33. That, together with space, was the primary challenge in the pursuit of eternity in pre-modern constructions, fortifications in particular34. The angle square and the compass also embodied a view of Mensuration35 reinforced by allegorical tradition that linked the philosophy of architecture to space in general36. In 1599 the marriage of scientific knowledge and military action was pictured on the cover of a book entitled Milicia y descripción de las Indias authored by Captain Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, in which the author was shown holding a compass in his right hand, poised on a globe, while grasping a sword with his left, all under the caption «With a compass and a sword / more and more and more and more»37. Shortly before, one of the impresas deployed for Philip II’s funeral rites in Naples Cathedral consisted in a compass drawing a circle under the caption CIRCVIT IMMOTVS. The idea that inspired the geometric symbol was that «se bene il Re era stato il più della sua vita, fermo con la presenza nella

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Spagna; haveva egli nondimeno coll’alto et generoso pensiero aggirato tutto il mondo; et con l’invitta potenza circondato con l’Impero suo un compiuto giro della Terra»38.

Mobility and stillness (with their corollaries, expansion and defence) thereby merged in an image of political perfection.

Lines drawn on paper represented divisions between kingdoms when, in the absence of a natural boundary such as the Pyrenees, history defined limits along plains with rivers as the only seams. That was what set the stage for fortifications and consequently for their depiction. That was the case of the Portuguese boundary, the least natural of all and nonetheless one of the most persistent, despite the 1580 annexation that drove new expansive ambitions symbolised by the emblematic runaway horse. Very soon, drawings were made of cities on the dividing line to determine the condition of their Medieval walls and the need for modernisation. A book by Duarte de Armas provides invaluable witness to how the frontier was conceived in 1511. When secession began with the Portuguese revolt under the Duke of Braganza, the 1642 copy of that book described the defensive continuity of a front that would be the site of further attempts in the decades that followed39. The exchange of experience among engineers and architects on both sides of this artificial boundary were attested to by the works of Francisco de Holanda40, which culminated in the constructions authored by Filippo Terzi and other major actors in the 1580 conquest of Lusitania41.

Other more subtle and remote frontiers lay hidden in cities transformed in the sixteenth century by demographic and architectural growth. When Philip II commissioned Anton Van der Wyngaerde make a record of his Spanish kingdoms in images, the draughtsman’s gaze lingered in the cities. Like the writers who, true to Pausanias, were creating a new chorographic tradition, Wyngaerde left an accurate description of Spain’s major urban settings, borrowing from the drawing techniques inherited from his Flemish masters. The artist took to the countryside to find the ideal perspectives, extracted the grandeur of the horizon in hills and coasts and precisely portrayed cities enclosed in walls generally more effective as fiscal and symbolic bounds than as defensive structures. The exception was to be found in coastal cities like Barcelona, where new sections of wall reinforced with bastions had been built42.

The evolution of the use of drawings and chronicles in shaping the land into a political body, epitomised by the border, drew from a diverse perception of information and image43. Due to the survival of the broader meaning of the Medieval frontier, with its widespread historical and literary reverberations in Spanish society44, the modern frontier, like the early bastioned fortifications along it, was a transitional construct. The idea of the frontier (never fully consummated) above and beyond local patronage-based relations was consolidated across a complex jurisdictional, military and diplomatic web45 reminiscent of Imperial Roman limes, marked by the Spanish crown’s ceaseless construction and mensuration46. Confines and enclaves of Medieval origin co-existed with this new geometrised space as a result of the reformulation of the territorial basis of power47. Even that geometrisation, however, was fruit of political struggle in- and outside the monarchy that led to different strategies that were both time- (further to fluctuations in the crown’s resources, which determined the alternation between expansion and defence in successive reigns) and space-dependent. In that battle the expansive pressure brought to bear

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FIG. 4

DIEGO DE SAAVEDRA FA-

JARDO.

Idea de un príncipe político cristiano representada en cien empresas. Milán, 1642. «I am assailed and defended», Impresa 83.

by certain provincial elites was countered by the prudent defensive restraint of other forces both at court and in the territories48.

In a similar vein, the monarchy’s priorities shifted from the Mediterranean49 to the Atlantic, whilst its Ottoman enemy, forfeiting the logistic advantage afforded by its alliance with France since 1526, diverted its power away from that interior sea to expand eastward to Asian geographies. In spite of its considerable advances in engineering, the Spanish monarchy never undertook projects comparable to the large Ottoman canals, focusing rather on defence in static enclosures. The Turks and the Spaniards nonetheless shared a continental view of power that led them to see naval routes as a prolongation of their inland counterparts. The former were regarded as no less vital for communication between their domains, over and above the need to choose between ship and fortress construction which was tantamount to opting between dynamic defence at sea and static defence on land. In 1640 Saavedra Fajardo summarised the need to reconcile the two mechanisms in his «impresa» 83, which depicted Medieval tower in a modern fortress surrounded by the sea under the caption «I am assailed and defended»50.

The monarchy’s universality also rested on the claim to the right of exclusive navigation, which spread past the initial hegemonic ambitions over the western Mediterranean (the «Spanish Sea» in Ottoman texts) to include a Spanish Ocean in the Atlantic and even a Hispanis Mare Pacificum. The former was based on controversial papal concessions (ironically called «Adam’s will», a phrase traditionally attributed to Francis I of France51), while the latter was found on maps drawn as late as the second half of the seventeenth century. Reality, however, gradually outpaced names. The growing dependence of naval art on technology52 and military architecture conditioned the mobilisation of economic, technical and human resources. That intensified the contradiction between expansion and defence, mirrored by the evolution of fortifications: from the earliest bastion-based structures built by the Catholic Monarchs, through their fuller definition under the Emperor53 and expansion and theoretical development under Philip II54 to their trouble-fraught conservation in the seventeenth

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century55. This process led to the consolidation of the perception of the territories as fortresses defended by the walls of their mountains and coasts in conjunction with the bastions around their cities56. The monarchy as a whole could be compared to a huge fortress with its borders as its outer walls.

Urban centres such as Milan were defined, in turn, as fortress cities where continental roads converged, guaranteeing the mobility of armies between southern and northern Europe57. At the same time, projects for bastioned cities continued to be planned to protect maritime frontiers and ensure the existence of a network of ports vital to the major coastal routes. Hence the Spanish garrisons at Toscana58 and in northern Africa or enclaves such as Felipeia in Brazil, founded at the end of Philip II’s reign59.

Galleys and galleons fitted with increasingly effective artillery60 formed the backbone of a naval machinery that, in its struggle against distance, unsuccessfully proposed the use of propellers in addition to human and wind power to dispense with sails61. These vessels could be regarded as floating fortresses and the fleets as mobile cities62. In his memorandum on the creation of a huge royal library addressed to the king at the beginning of Philip II’s reign, Juan Páez de Castro alluded to the utility of «having armed and provisioned and mobile cities able to carry your fundamentals wherever deemed suitable»63. Vessels and fortresses were the answer to geopolitical needs based on the defence of maritime corridors (depending on the coasts and the winds, such as the one that connected Barcelona to Genoa, Naples and Palermo in the Mediterranean64, the Indies Route in the Atlantic and its prolongation in the Pacific with the Manila galleon65) or land routes (such as the famous Spanish Road between northern Italy and the Netherlands66) to guarantee inter-territorial communication. The layout and evolution of these corridors, the crown’s military and economic arteries, determined the monarchy’s general plan of action and hence the production of drawings and designs, such as for fortresses in the Strait of Magellan intended to control navigation between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans67.

Unsurprisingly, from the Age of Discovery the sea was used as a metaphor for the court, archives or books (the custodians of the secrets of power), while cartographers and engineers rendered ever more accurate outlines of those discoveries in all manner of drawings, beginning with maps. To capture a view of land and sea on a few inches of paper, suggest the presence of light, air and water with brush and pen, run one’s gaze across coastlines spattered with spots of colour and small glittering pennants, study the wind rose as if it were a compass trapped in an angle of a piece of world, so close and yet so far away... such were the miracles of cartography explored at least from the times of Ptolemaic Alexandria. But neither the Greek and Roman ecumene nor the narrower spatial horizon embraced in the Middle Ages had ever, as far as we know, reached the virtuosity and conceptual wealth of the maps drawn in the so-called modern age68. Treasure holds of constantly renovated knowledge able to crush authoritarian premises with the methodical application of empirical analysis; works of art that conveyed the aesthetic thrust of late Gothic; the gradual assertion of classical motifs and ultimately the prevalence of the most refined mannerist language culminating in the descriptive apotheosis identified with Baroque style; maps with their drawings of fortresses and frontiers... all encompassed a world rife with natural and political barriers

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Cover of BATTISTA AGNESE’s Atlas, containing the single-headed imperial eagle, Spain’s coat of arms and a portrait of Philip II in Roman attire receiving the world from God the Father. 1544. John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.

FIG. 5

FIG. 6

152

BATTISTA AGNESE’s

Atlas. World map with Magellan’s route. 1544. John Carter Brown Library, Brown University.

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

that would be felled by the thirst for knowledge. Sovereigns and a few members of the political elite lent growing attention to these images, regarded as an essential tool of governmental culture69.

In 1543 Charles V gave his heir one of the first atlases, a small portable copy, authored

by Genovese cartographer Battista Agnese. The cover of that work, widely regarded as a visual supplement to the Emperor’s instructions on the art of governance intended for his son70, contained an allegorical manifesto of the expansive objectives symbolised by the maps inside. Neptune was portrayed piloting a trireme, an allusion to the maritime empire on which the monarchy’s power should rest, while the future Caesar, Philip, arms raised, received the globe held out to him by Providence. The maps showed Philip the latitude and direction of the winds, as well as the areas where expansion was a priority, along with a world map charting Magellan’s and El Cano’s itinerary in their voyage around the world71. This lesson in political geography was a lodestar for his education72, for it reflected the changes that were expanding the monarchy’s borders. Not unjustifiably, another atlas by the same cartographer depicted a man (doubling for the author) dressed in ancient garb and using a compass to measure the world handed him by Atlas, a recurrent embodiment of power and an iconographic precedent to Vargas Machuca’s selfimage.

Maps, inseparable from borders, shifted with them. The dream of an empire where the sun never set was evoked at least from 1535 in the impresa coined by Sicilian scientist

FIG. 7

BATTISTA AGNESE’s

Atlas. Depicting Atlas and a male figure measuring with a compass, 1546. Russian National Li-

brary, St Petersburg.

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and humanist Francesco Maurolico for Charles V’s entry into Messina. It would be expanded to include a lunar metaphor as a premonition of the fate to which it was destined by its excesses in a map authored by Michael Florent van Langren. This Flemish astronomer came to Madrid in 1631 to defend his studies on the length of the sea based on the phases of the moon in response to the demands for accuracy made by a monarchy obliged to maintain its naval capacity. He christened the selenic topography designed years earlier by Galileo, turning it to the greater glory of the Planet King, Philip IV73. More earthly concerns moved the king, in 1634, to commission a huge atlas of his domains from royal cosmographer Pedro de Texeira. Similarly, his prime minister Luis de Haro had another atlas drawn by Italian painter Leonardo Ferrari, which focused on the two most FIG. 8 Cover of BERNARDO DE VARGAS MACHUCA’s troubled regions afflicted by open revolt, Milicia y descripción de las Indias. Madrid, 1599, Pedro Madrigal.

Italy and Portugal74. Between these two cartographic endeavours, the monarchy was forced to exchange its hegemonic ambitions for defensive goals. Defence priorities shifted inward, as shown in the drawings and descriptions of fortifications along the Portuguese border, which concurred with the last military offensives to recover that territory in the sixteen sixties75.

«RUN YOUR EYES»

In 1595 Tiburzio Spannochi undertook to describe the Sicilian city-fortresses in a text dedicated to the future Philip III, calling on him «to run Your eyes over it at [Your] leisure, as a work meant for His Magesty and Y.H. only, for it addresses matters whose conveyance is not apt for many nor fit for print...». Spannochi, who stressed the importance of defending the kingdom of Sicily76 given its location «at the farthest end and frontier of Your Magesty’s and our religion’s most powerful enemy», embodied the by then imperative role played by the methods for measuring and representing land areas.

In 1578 he received a commission from Viceroy Marco Antonio Colonna to provide a «true and detailed description of the shores with their ports and coves and ground plans and elevations of the fortifications there and an opinion on each...». To that end, «together with the description of these ports and inlets along the shores, perspectives were drawn of each site and their towers, which as you will see are painted thereon in the

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margin with a list of what would be needed to repair them, showing the guards mounted everywhere and marking the differences among them [...], the places where new towers would be required are identified, along with their shape, size and cost in proportion to those standing, which can be distinguished along the coast as yellow dots...». The aim was to make the king and his advisers aware of the actual condition of his possessions in the eyes of experts, since «for things relating to descriptions of provinces the Royal person and more importantly those designated to advise him should draw from other opinions to better resolve in such respects, for their grave and constant occupations leave them no room to see with their own eyes the large expanses of land under their rule...»77.

Spannochi’s career, like Torriani’s, Calvi’s and the Paleari Fratinos’78, attested to the draughtsman’s role, adopted every more consciously by engineers. They were even known to resort to others when their own ability fell short of the skill needed to fulfil such a primary duty, or used their own designs to build visual universes where technique converged with the most erudite symbolism, such as in the symbolic maps of the Canary Islands drawn by Torriani79. Drawing the borderline was tantamount to beginning to build it80, to closing the gap between architecture and territory, to envisioning political and military bounds established in diplomatic treaties and by experts in war. The draughtsman engineer became the interpreter able to rationalise the world, whilst the frontier, the abstract line that crossed seas and mountain ranges, sprang to life in hidden archives or on the desk where the prince and his entourage (his ears, hands and eyes) envisioned the universe conveyed to them on paper. In drawings of the border, nature could be depicted as a political construct, a wall, a fortress whose design determined the very rules of war. This idea was captured by Baltasar de Ayala, the auditor of Alessandro Farnese’s army in Flanders, when he wrote in his treatise on military law (an elaborate justification of the repression of revolt), that «In the constitutions of the kingdom of Spain [...] he who by order of the king were designated to head a poorly built and provisioned fortress impossible to defend, and notified the king accordingly, would not offend the crown if the fortress is taken by the enemy...»81. In its reproduction of reality, drawing was in itself an exercise in government, imposing order on the surface of the land with maps, ground plans or overviews, or stripping it down into its parts for subsequent transformation.

Given the intimidating role of fortresses, the mere announcement of their construction could trigger alarm and even rebellion, as in Sienna and Genoa, or purportedly technical debates around their layout that veiled political controversy. The disputed construction of Sant’Elmo Castle at Naples, for instance, prompted a reply from its author, Pedro Luis de Escrivá, in a manuscript that constituted the first Spanish treatise on fortifications82.

Indeed, building or merely designing a fortress sufficed to shift borderlines to the very heart of cities, as symbolised by the drawing of a citadel included in the treatises on the subject83, further to political practice as attested to by Machiavelli84. The author of The Prince is not regarded as a theorist of the politics of drawing, however. That role is assigned to his contemporary and in some respects antagonist Baltasar de Castiglione, who in a famous paragraph of Book I of his The Courtier recommended «to know how to draw and design and have an understanding of the art of painting» for «in addition to the

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esteem in which [such skills] are held, they are immensely beneficial, especially in war, when regions, settlements, rivers, bridges, cliffs, fortresses and similar must often be sketched for, even if they could be memorised, a nearly impossible endeavour, they could not be depicted in any other way»85. Later Francisco de Holanda, further to the neo-Platonic theory that made drawing the intellectual origin of all the other arts and even military science, would have Michelangelo claim: «drawing is enormously useful in war to depict the position of remote places, the form of mountains and ports in ranges and bays and sea ports; the form of high and low fortresses, walls and gates and their locations; roads, rivers and beaches and the lagoons and fords to be circumvented or crossed...».

For all those reasons, he concluded, «what greater courtesy can be had by any brave gentleman than to reveal to FIG. 9 GALASSO ALGHISI DA CARPI. Delle fortificationi.

Venice, 1570. the inexperienced and unaccustomed eyes of soldiers the form of the city they are to siege before the attack?»86.

Architectural knowledge, associated with the practical application of geometry and reinforced by the growing intellectual ambition of its practitioners87, was introduced to Spanish royal (especially from the times of Philip II88) and noble89 courtly culture through drawing. Arithmetic and geometry formed part of the same conceptual realm that wedded theory to the exercise of power. That ideal was invoked in treatises on fortifications such as authored by Galasso Alghisi di Carpi (the Duke of Ferrara’s architect) in Venice in 1570, dedicated to Emperor Maximilian II, the Prudent King’s cousin. All the platitudes of construction science were summarised on the allegorical cover of this text. Presided by the imperial effigy flanked by the four cardinal virtues, it depicted a Doric façade where architecture, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy were symbolised. At the base, the front side of a bastion was set amongst geometric shapes over an inscription that exalted the dual objectives, defence and territorial expansion, to be achieved through the virtue and art that should inform the ruler’s principled mind.

Adopting the same approach (although here rejecting territorial expansion policies), Neapolitan humanist Mario Galeota wrote in his manuscript treatise entitled Delle Fortificationi (dedicated to Philip II in 1560) that like architects, who before drawing the perfect fortress must have a mental vision of the complementarity of its components, princes must envision their lands as the place where all areas of knowledge converge to

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FIG. 10

GIORGIO

VASARI.

Cosme I estudia el plan para la conquista de Siena, ca. 1563-1565.

Palazzo Vecchio, Salone dei Cinquecento, Florence.

design the defence of cities and countryside90. Here the sovereign was depicted as the builder of his state. In another unpublished treatise on fortifications, written at around the same time as Galeota’s, nobleman and engineer Pesaro Giovan Jacopo Leonardi defended a division of roles between the prince, regarded as the intellect, the captain and the eyes, and the engineer, viewed as the hand91. Perhaps the most explicit depiction of the draughtsman prince and engineer was painted by Vasari (emulating Michelangelo’s ideas) on the ceiling of the ceiling over the Hall of the Five Hundred in the Florentine Palazzo Vecchio in 1563-1565. In this rendering, Cosimo I de’ Medici is shown (attired as a courtier, with the coat of arms on the floor and escorted by Prudence and Strength) among episodes of the War of Siena (one of the major laboratories of military architecture) drawing geometric shapes with a compass on the ground plan of a fortification at a desk bearing a scale model of the city under siege92. Drawing, more than architecture itself, became a metaphor for power and its exercise in history. In 1536 Bernardo Pérez translated a chronicle of the Italian campaigns written by Galeazzo Capella to the future Philip II: «so You can read what is drawn in history books, for history is painting that talks»93. Charles V himself was known to be fond of drawings of land and fortresses, which he brought to Yuste, and to sporadically practise this art, for as Francesco Sansovino wrote, «talhora ritirato in secreto passava il tempo col disegnar qualche pianta di fortezza o di altro edificio»94. In sympathy with the proliferation of books of drawings and manuscripts circulating among Italian Renaissance artists like mobile galleries95, borders

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FIG. 11 JUAN DE’ MEDICI. Plano del curso del Río Bidasoa a su paso por Behovia. España, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas, MPD 16, 127.

FIG. 12

PIETER VAN DER

MEULEN.

Intercambio de princesas en 1615 en el Bidasoa, (Crown Heritage) Encarnación Monastery, Madrid.

were introduced in the chambers reserved to sovereigns and their advisers before appearing (as horizon, battle or fortress) on the walls of the ceremonial rooms with which they shared the political scenario.

Ceremonies represented the power of consensus in motion. Consequently, like the science of fortification, the science of etiquette was restricted knowledge only gradually disseminated. Both comprised reserved knowledge, the converse of propaganda96, for they formed part of the secrets of power, even when intended to attest to its grandeur by embodying the capacity to organise space both in its innermost depths and its remotest bounds. The reception and interpretation of cartographers’ and engineers’ drawings paralleled the development of ceremonies around which palace life was structured in keeping with practice codified on the grounds of other drawings that defined the hierarchies in courtly space97. Borders also acquired a ceremonial dimension, providing the setting for royal encounters and matrimonial alliances along traditional boundaries such as the River Bidasoa. As preparatory drawings and celebratory paintings show, the

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royal travel called for by such events afforded an opportunity to inspect the fortifications in the surrounds and establish disputed boundaries with the aid of devices deployed for the occasion (commissioned from military engineers such as Juan de’ Medici in 1615).

The topographic accuracy of such illustrations, which complemented narratives, calls up the panoramic technique of military and cartographic drawing. Subordinate, however, to the theatrics of dynastic balance, they cunningly established visual symmetries by concealing territorial rivalries evident in the preliminary negotiations and the depiction of armies in battle formation behind the courtly entourage. The fact that some of the paintings representing these scenes were hung alongside the maps, battles and view of cities that adorned the New Hall in Madrid’s castle attested to the ceremonial relevance afforded depictions of the frontier98. Irrespective of diplomatic events, however, the command of space and time was a conceit shared by the courtly and military dimensions, which on occasion used the same symbols, such as the angle square and the compass, to express the importance of mensuration and with it the architectural nature of power99.

Cartography and design endowed drawings with a dynamic thrust where science and 100 art , space and time converged, extending the use of perspective to military and hence political activity as a whole101, while applying the progress in optics to which Golden Age literature bore witness102. The visual integration of knowledge, whose highest achievement is identified with seventeenth century Dutch art, was also present in the drawings of borders and cities authored by the Spanish monarchy’s military engineers.

As their overviews and ground plans, while seeped in the same visual culture, lacked the aesthetic connotations that characterised decorative or celebratory representations of the land, they were free to deploy the capacity to capture reality. Regarded as minor works in the conventional hierarchy of genres, they were pivotal to an artistic and political as well as a scientific itinerary. Viewing them as they were seen by the king and ministers or generals for whom they were intended is tantamount to understanding that they were as subordinate to power as they were free of representational codes. Their interpretation is comparable to an ekphrastic exercise. They attempted to emulate that rhetoric device, but not in competition with poets as painters of stories, but with historians, while lacking the latter’s penchant for persuasion, at least in secret maps and perspectives. These depictions immediately transferred what the draughtsman saw to the prince’s quarters, enabling him to «see with his eyes» what was beyond the line of sight.

This absentee viewing was patterned on governmental procedures, in which the monarchy’s power was channelled through viceroys and governors103. The crown was structured around provincial courts, but also through a system of symbolic pictures and illustrations which in the case of royal portraits were afforded majestic tribute104. Reversing its initial role as a restricted resource, military and hence political drawing, along with other governmental techniques, erupted onto the courtly scenario in a monarchy that identified with visual representation105.

Nonetheless, the plain, apparently unadorned images that emerged from the chain of visual production and consumption that ran from borders to palace was not bereft of aesthetic factors. As in ceremony and the culture and spatial dimension of power as a whole, the pictorial traditions of Flanders and Italy converged in these drawings, condi-

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FIG. 13

DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ.

The surrender of Breda (detail), 1634-1635. Prado Museum, Madrid.

tioned by a taste shared by the court and the territories. «Artless art» in appearance only, every millimetre of these portrayals of reality were bound by the laws of perspective and geometry. In such drawings of state the colour that vivified countryside and buildings, the framing that wrested them from nature, the pen stroke that defined and categorised their elements, were indebted to a broader cognitive range that exceeded mere tactical utility. Engineers’ drawings, fruit of that artistic experimentation, served both to furnish «urban portraits» for the purposes of warfare106 and to celebrate power through a new form of political imagery that was translated to engravings or cartographic painting, as well as to the frescoes found in large libraries and palaces or the prints and paintings of bourgeois interiors portrayed in the seventeenth century by Dutch painters such as Vermeer. In the fifteen hundreds, city views and maps, preceded by feudal horizons present in the thirteen hundreds in Italian spaces such as republican Siena or the lordly Emilian castle at Torrechiara (ca 1460), adorned the walls of the Farnese Palace at Caprarola, the Vecchio Palace at Florence, the Vatican library, the courtyard in Álvaro de Bazán’s palace at Viso del Marqués and the Hall of Battles at El Escorial, to name a few of the better known venues in Italy and Spain107.

That gave rise to a new genre for adorning palatial walls that supplemented allegorical images. Lands and fortresses, rendered with new techniques, ultimately proliferated in the far views in canvases of battles, synthesising historical painting and geographic image.

One of the most prominent examples lies in the canvases in the Hall of Realms, where topographic accuracy was a sign of authenticity intended to extol the Conde Duque de Olivares’s enlargement policies and reputation. These paintings are an ode to the cult of observation of reality subject to the ruler’s perspective. History was played out in specific geographic space to reflect the ceremonial and legal consummation of surrender through the figures portrayed in the foreground. Exceptionally, in Maíno’s The recovery of Bahía

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FIG. 14

FRAY JUAN BAUTISTA MAÍNO.

The recovery of Bahía de Todos los Santos (detail), 1634-1635. Prado Museum, Madrid.

de Todos los Santos, the political and ceremonial image of the victorious general offering the defeated army a tapestry with the royal effigy, was set in the middle ground. Time and space converged in the Hall of Realms under the king’s unifying gaze, in which everyday rule was transferred to the primary site for courtly representation by means of visual images or texts in drawings, panoramas or narratives rife with fortresses and frontiers. In contrast to the secrecy in which the drawings that marked out lands and battles were cloaked, this display of reality, this embodiment of the idea of the legitimacy of power, was openly exhibited in courtly environs.

Nonetheless, all these pictures shared the need to place the monarchy’s law in high relief. The far views in Velazquez’s The surrender of Breda and other battlefield paintings were not mere stage props but fragments of a world whose domination depended on the ability to be represented, seen and understood. These renderings of distant horizons controlled by a network of fortifications were the outcome of translating engineers’ drawings from paper to canvas, although at times indirectly, with engravings as intermediaries.

The eloquence of the foreground scenes in these paintings, where history and politics prevailed, was reinforced by the descriptive rigour of backgrounds that showed the true extent of the kingdoms whose heraldic image adorned the vaulted ceiling in this hall.

History took shape in the amplitude of space and, as in some Dutch paintings, emblematic scenes were juxtaposed to descriptive or cartographic illustrations. The two were united by history in which nature, humanised by war, was a realm of rational technical control where representation was justified by the virtues embodied in the attitudes of the victorious generals.

These paintings aimed to be an objective record of events and to convey an idea.

Standing before the throne with its steps and canopy, for an instant the viewer shared the vantage of the sovereign for whom they were intended. Paintings of bastions attested

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to the climax of technical as well as political design; painted maps described and recorded events, converting realities into notations, whereas in engineers’ drawings notations occupied fragments of territory, albeit to transform them in keeping with the same idea that guided the viewer’s gaze in the Hall of Realms108. This differed substantially from the allegorical rhetoric that would later be deployed at Versailles, where frontiers and fortresses occupied the far views in only a few latter-day decorative panels on the Ambassadors’ Staircase109. In the Spanish court drawing was projected onto reality to step through the looking glass of the political prudence with which power aimed to regulate its transformative capacity by choosing which part of a design would be built. In this light, Las Meninas, the family of Philip IV’s dynastic manifesto, embodied the doctrine of integrating power and image, melding majesty, vision and depiction in a pictorial crystallisation of the idea of government as design, removed from frontiers and battlefields to palatial seclusion.

That inner retreat, closed to the courtiers who gazed at depictions of battlefields and lands on canvas or engraved maps to visualise the monarchy’s vast expanse, was the domain of secrecy, of the true exercise of power, the customs office for drawings where frontier as abstraction could materialise and its fortresses bodied forth. Like courtly ceremony, this space also had an itinerary that ran to the monarch’s own study from the quarters in Madrid’s Alcázar or Castle where the Council of War (created as a branch of the Council of State in 1526 in charge of military affairs in the three crucial domains: the defences for Castile, the artillery and borderline fortifications110) held its meetings. Compared to the controlled dissemination of frescoes, canvases and engravings, the extreme reserve with which drawings were dealt was indicative of their importance. A drawing was more than a deferred order or still motion: it was a military and political manoeuvre. Where images are acts rather than celebrations, governing is gazing, designing and building. In and through drawing, power started to become effective as image-based rule. Kepler resorted to the image of the magistrate and the council to describe the sense of sight, regarded as representation, as in painting111. Saavedra Fajardo also, in his Impresa 56 (which combines compass, writing and secrecy) resorted to the image of the painter and the architect to extol the role of the secretary, guardian of royal records: «The Council puts forward the idea for a factory. The secretary draws the ground plan. And if it is flawed, the building erected over it will also be flawed. To express that idea in this impresa, his pen is also a compass, for not only must he write, but he must also measure and adjust resolutions, synchronise occasion and timing so that building is undertaken neither too early nor too late...»112. The extensive writings on the secretary attest to his political role113.

Ruling was a way of seeing (farther away and deeper within than others) and of painting, in which reality had first to be drawn to be appropriated. Foresight involved more than organising defence; it also entailed initiating a design for a conquest. If fortification was an act of territorial appropriation which, like founding cities, implemented a legal title to sovereignty, every picture of a city or a frontier was an open door in the walls of actual or potential enemies. Hence the value accorded stolen pictures, clandestine descriptions and their visual depictions, drawn in the shadows of spontaneity or from memory. Even when delineated with no perspective and in child-like mode, by prisoners for instance, they were useful sources of information about horizons otherwise inaccessible114.

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JUAN DE SOLÓRZANO PEREIRA. Emblemata centum regio politica. «Emblema LIV». Madrid, 1653.

FIG. 16

FIG. 15

CESARE RIPA.

Iconología. «Spia». Venice, 1645.

Cristoforo Tomasini.

For today’s information-obsessed mentality, secrecy is a conceit even blurrier than frontier, while constituting its inescapable reverse. Beginning in the sixteenth century, however, many authors, such as Botero, described secrecy as an imperative to the exercise of power115. In his Príncipe Perfecto published in 1662, Jesuit Andrés Mendo resorted to the metaphor of the eyes, identified with prudence, to contend: «be he who rules an Argos from whom nothing is concealed […] and when he with his power embraces the four corners of the world, like our Spanish monarch, be he the oculus mundi. All should he see with the eyes of understanding»116. Secrecy became one of the pillars of political science, inseparable from prudence and surveillance. The image of the vigilant prince, like Argos, was consequently invoked by Saavedra Fajardo as a sceptre with eyes in his impresa 55 («His Praevide et provide»), and by Solórzano Pereira, in emblem LXVI («Legum munia, vrbium moenia»), with its city decked with the eyes of the law (and hence of power), and especially in LIV («Administri principum») where the king is depicted wearing a robe adorned with embroidered eyes. The metaphor was also used by Cesare Ripa to represent spies, with a lantern (light in the dark) and a dog (vigilance)117.

All these elements formed part of ever more complex decision-making that was changing the exercise of power.

Together with the rise of science of number and the art of cryptography118, the development of archives helped shape a view of confidential information in which drawings of sensitive points and routes were a crucial element in a complex system of espionage that also found its way into literature119. Beginning in the fifteenth century, secret cartography was crucial to competing with Portugal for expansion120. Against that backdrop,

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Hieronymus Müntzer’s voyage across Spain in 1494 and Martin Benheim’s121 design of the globe illustrate two early episodes of the pursuit of information by the major political powers and their growing dependence on technology. The zealous custody of the Royal Census in the House of Trade at Seville symbolises the race for representing space as well as the ongoing improvements in technique122 that made secrets age at a dizzying pace. Designs for fortifications met much the same fate, for they were soon rendered useless by the circulation of knowledge that led to the publication of the earliest treatises in the sixteenth century. Espionage focusing on secret devices and machines was enlarged to include maps, as shown by the dealings conducted in Portugal by Giovan Battista Gesio, Philip II’s Neapolitan cartographer in charge of extraordinarily ambitious measuring and drawing projects in a world that appeared to be too small for the monarchy123.

French espionage in Spain124, the object of the greatest historiographic attention, along

FIG. 17 ALBERT DÜRER, Melancholía I, 1514.

Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

with spying in the Mediterranean area125, was of particular significance in the sixteenthand seventeenth-century enthusiasm for studies on espionage126. Fortification drawing played a crucial role in this scenario and on occasion was disguised as a fondness for classical art to conceal its actual objectives. This The precision of defensive detail in Francisco de Holanda’s drawing of Sant’Elmo Castle at Naples on the occasion of a voyage to Italy in 1539 and 1540 under the orders of John III of Portugal to depict ancient monuments alongside new fortifications reveals more than academic purpose127.

In one of his most famous engravings, an allegorical vision of melancholy whose interpretation is shrouded in mystery even today, Dürer depicted the symbolic attributes of construction, identified with thought and geometric activity. The winged female figure that embodies the condition sits alongside an unfinished building, surrounded by measuring instruments. The sea is shown at a distance as a boundary to be crossed. The figure

FIG. 18

HANS HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER.

Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve (The Ambassadors), 1533. London, National

Gallery.

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rests a compass against a board on which she is not drawing; rather, her head is raised and her attitude pensive. A huge key hangs from her waist, used to open and close the chest where she keeps her mental secrets128. The combination of secrecy, line drawing and mathematics strengthened the master builder’s intellectual personality. Therefore, Dürer’s pensive angel is a female draughtsman who custodies impenetrable ideas so vulnerable that they need to be hidden. The museum of instruments and images of mathematical knowledge in whose midst she sits, as if amid the wood carvings in a studiolo, would later be copied in other depictions of mensuration and drawing in a world in which the political dimension was becoming ever more explicit. They also appeared in the no less well known canvas The Ambassadors painted by Hans Holbein the Younger in 1533, where the globe bears lines marking Magellan’s route and a mathematical and political frontier identified with the division defined in the Treaty of Tordesillas acknowledged by neither the French nor the English monarch. With the many layers of meaning that make it one of the best visual synopses of the political culture of its day, the painting can be interpreted as a reappraisal of diplomacy that stressed the power of mathematics and cartography in the competition for the domination of a world that had begun to be global.

In their silent dialogue, however, symbolised by elements such as the distorted skull129, these French ambassadors to Henry VIII’s court also exude a need for secrecy, inherent in the ambition to design the world and in the power of the image as a tool of government, a conceit whose implications had been fully grasped by the monarchy against which they were pitted.

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NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

This study forms part of research project HAR2012-37560-C02-02 funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Economy.

Tenured professor of Modern History. Department of Modern, Contemporary and American History, Journalism, Audiovisual Communication and Advertising, Faculty of Liberal Arts. University of Valladolid. Pza. del Campus s/n, 47011-Valladolid. carlosjh@hmca.uva.es SAN JUAN DE LA CRUZ, 1957, pp. 683 and 715-716. [English translation, D. Lewis: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/canticle.txt, 20160416]. Significantly, St John resorted to the image of the traveller who «takes new roads, unknown and untried», to explain other verses of his Noche Oscura: ibid., p. 630. [English translation, E.A. Peers: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/ dark_night.viii.xvi.html, 20160416].

ROTTERDAM, 1998, pp. 48-49.

HOLANDA, 1984, p. 16.

See RICARD, 1965; EGIDO, 1982; GÓMEZ SOLÍS, 1990. Compare to BLANCO, 1996.

See BOGNOLO, 1996 and 2000; DUCE GARCÍA, 2005.

See DUCE GARCÍA, 2001.

ARREDONDO, 1528. Compare to SEARY, 1996.

ALDANA, 2000, p. 405.

See MANGANI, 1998.

See BATAILLON, 1960; ROSENTHAL, 1971 and 1973; WALTER, 1995; GONZALO SÁNCHEZ-MOLERO, 2000.

See POLLEROSS, 1993.

See BRAUDEL, 1949.

See PARKER, 1998, pp. 36-37.

See MADERUELO, 2005.

BUZZATI, 2005, pp. 278-279.

See SICARI, 2006.

See IOGNA-PRAT, 2016.

HEIDEGGER, 1994.

FEBVRE, 1912, 1928 and 1935.

SCHMITT, 1979 and 2007.

See SCHLÖGEL, 2007.

See TOUBERT, 1992. On the Modern Age, for which there is extensive literature, see: NORDMAN, 1998; DELSALLE and FERRER, 2000; FASANO GUARINI and VOLPINI, 2008; BERTRAND and PLANAS, 2011. On fortification on the frontier in general, see: SODINI, 2001.

See SAHLINS, 1989.

In Ramón de Basterra’s poetry, for instance, and his Escuela Romana del Pirineo, or Ernesto Jiménez Caballero and his vision of the Pyrenees as a historic barrier to celebrate the end of the Spanish Civil War: BASTERRA, 2001; JIMÉNEZ CABALLERO, 1939.

See AZARA, 2005.

See CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1991.

See LÓPEZ ALEMANY and VAREY, 2006, pp. 15-22.

See SLOTERDIJK, 2004 and 2007.

See CHECA and GARCÍA, 2011.

See PEIL, 1999; BÖKER, 1999. Compare to GORDON, 1987, pp. 231-252.

See ANGELINI, 2007.

See HARRIES, 1992.

Cesare Ripa’s 1593 Iconologia portrayed «Misura» (mensuration) as a «donna di grave aspetto» who held a ruler in her right hand, representing the Roman foot, and in the left an angle square and a compass, for «La Misura è ciò che col peso, con la capacità, con lunghezza, alteza & animo si termina & finisce», and on the grounds of her instruments, she is associated with geometry (RIPA, 1992, pp. 289-291). The figure bears a striking similarity to Ripa’s «Theoria», shown as a young woman gazing upward, on her head a compass with the tips pointed toward the sky (ibid., pp. 530-531). The allegory inherent in Ordine Dritto, e Giusto can also be set in the same conceptual and symbolic realm (ibid., pp. 328-329). The compass, like the angle square and other measuring instruments in the same semantic sphere, were associated with different branches of knowledge and the arts, portrayed as states of mind or mental faculties. See CORRAIN, 2010. Compare to PIERGUIDI, 2008.

See CHECA, 1986.

See ELLIOTT, 1972, pp. 69-70; PARKER, 1990, p. 165. For a modern version of Vargas’s book, see VARGAS MACHUCA, 2003, edited

by Cuesta Domingo and F. López-Ríos. Compare to MARTÍNEZ DE SALINAS, 1991.

See HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, 1998.

See SILVA CASTELO-BRANCO, 1994.

See PORRAS GIL, 2002.

See BRESCIANI ALVAREZ, 1965; CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 2000; LÓPEZ MILLÁN, 2011.

See GALERA i MONEGAL, 1998.

See SCHUMACHER, 2002.

See MITRE FERNÁNDEZ, 2015; SÁNCHEZ GARCÍA, 2015.

See USUNÁRIZ, 2006; BÉLY, 2008.

See PADRÓN, 2004; CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 2014.

GOVERNMENT AND IMAGE IN THE SPANISH MONARCHY

167

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

77.

78.

79.

80.

81.

82.

83.

84.

85.

86.

87.

88.

89.

90.

91.

92.

93.

94.

95.

96.

97.

98.

99.

100.

101.

102.

103.

104.

105.

106.

107.

108.

109.

110.

168

See DELSALLE and FERRER, 2000.

See HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, 2013a.

See HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, 2006.

SAAVEDRA FAJARDO, 1976, pp. 791-792.

See VALDEÓN BARUQUE, 1994.

See CASADO SOTO, 2006; BUNES IBARRA, 2006.

See HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, 2001a.

See CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1998.

See CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 2005.

That was the formulation described in treatises authored in the fifteen fifties by Francesco de Marchi and Mario Galeota, among others; see: BRUNETTI, 2006.

See RIBOT, 1990; RIZZO, 2007.

See LÓPEZ TORRIJOS, 1999.

See CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1999.

See GUILMARTIN, 1974.

See GARCÍA TAPIA, 2004.

MARCHI, 1599. Compare to CONCINA, 1990.

PÁEZ DE CASTRO, 2014, p. 74.

See PACINI, 2013.

See LUCENA SALMORAL, 2003; BERNAL RODRÍGUEZ, 2004.

See PARKER, 2006.

See ZULETA CARRANDI, 2013.

See BROC, 1989; BUISSERET, 2004; FIORANI, 2005; RAMACHANDRAN, 2015.

See VAN DAMME, 1997; PARKER, 2001.

See BALL and PARKER, 2014.

See KAGAN, 2005.

See GONZALO SÁNCHEZ-MOLERO, 1999 and 2005.

See BOUZA, 1995; KAGAN, 2005.

See MARÍAS and PEREDA, 2002 and 2004; SÁNCHEZ RUBIO et al., 2004.

See SÁNCHEZ RUBIO et al., 2014.

See MILITELLO, 2004; MANFRÉ, 2013.

SPANNOCHI, 1596. Compare to MAZZAMUTO, 1986, p. 16; CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1988; POLTO, 2001.

See VIGANÒ, 2004; MARTÍNEZ LATORRE, 2006; CÁMARA MÚÑOZ et al., 2010.

See CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 2006. Compare to VIOLA NEVADO, 2008.

See CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1991; ORTEGA VIDAL, 2001.

AYALA, 1948, p. 550.

SÁNCHEZ-GIJÓN, 2000. Compare to HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, 2000 and 2001b.

See ÁLVAREZ-OSSORIO, 2000.

See HALE, 1983.

B. CASTIGLIONE, 1994, pp. 191 and 193.

HOLANDA, 1921, pp. 180-181.

See BARBEITO, 2008; BLASCO ESQUIVIAS, 2013.

See GONZALO SÁNCHEZ-MOLERO, 2013, pp. 773-779.

See MARTÍNEZ HERNÁNDEZ, 2003.

BRUNETTI, 2006.

LEONARDI, 1975, pp. 115-126.

See BORSI, 1980, pp. 99-125.

«Prólogo del maestro Bernardo Pérez al serenissimo y muy esclarecido Señor el Principe don Philipe»: CAPELLA, 1536, p. 1 v.

F. SANSOVINO, Il Simulacro di Carlo V Imperatore, Venice, 1576, cited by CHECA CREMADES, 1999, p. 12.

See FORLANI, 2012.

See HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, 2013b.

See BARBEITO, 2005; CASTAÑO PEREA, 2006 and 2009.

See DEL RÍO BARREDO, 2008; COLOMER, 2003.

See HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, in press.

See SCHULZ, 1990; ROMANELLI et al., 1999.

See DÍAZ MORENO, 2014.

See GARCÍA SANTO-TOMÁS, 2014.

See HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, 1999.

See BODART, 2011.

See HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ, 2003.

See CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 2009.

See PARTRIDGE, 1995; QUINLAN-MCGRATH, 1997; GAMBI et al., 1997; BROWN, 1998; PACETTI, 2007; RODRÍGUEZ MOYA, 2009.

See BROWN AND ELLIOT, 2003; ÚBEDA DE LOS COBOS, 2005; KAGAN, 2008; MARÍAS, 2012.

See ZIEGLER, 2015; GADY, 2015.

See FERNÁNDEZ CONTI, 1998; DOMÍNGUEZ NAFRÍA, 2001.

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

111. See ALPERS, 1987, p. 74.

112. SAAVEDRA FAJARDO, 1976, p. 548; see GÓMEZ ORFANEL, 2008.

113. See SIMONETTA, 2004.

114. See CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 2009.

115. BOTERO, 1603, f. 34v.

116. MENDO, 1662, p. 49; vid. BREDECKE, 2012, pp. 56-62.

117. GONZÁLEZ DE ZÁRATE, 1987, pp. 172 and 189; SAAVEDRA FAJARDO, 1976, pp. 533-546;

RIPA, 1630, Parte III, p. 90; vid. DE LA 2009, pp. 107-152; NAVARRO BONILLA, 2014-2015.

See GALENDE, 2002.

See RODRÍGUEZ DE DIEGO, 1998a and 1998b; NAVARRO BONILLA, 2003, 2004 and 2008; AICHINGER, 2013.

See PORRO GUTIÉRREZ, 2003.

CALERO, 1996.

See SÁNCHEZ, 2013.

See GOODMAN, 1990, pp. 81-94.

See D’ORGEIX, 2005. Compare to CARNICER GARCÍA and MARCOS RIVAS, 1998; MARCOS RIVAS and CARNICER GARCÍA, 2001.

See SOLA and PEÑA, 1996; SOLA CASTAÑO, 1997.

See CARTER, 1964; ECHEVARRÍA BACIGALUPE, 1984; SALINAS, 1994; CABAÑAS AGRELA, 2003; CARNICER and MARCOS, 2005; NAVARRO BONILLA, 2005.

See DESWARTE, 1992, pp. 163-183.

See KLIBANSKY et al., 1991; AZARA, 2005, pp. 187-192.

See FOISTER et al., 1997; NORTH, 2004.

FLOR,

118.

119.

120.

121.

122.

123.

124.

125.

126.

127.

128.

129.

GOVERNMENT AND IMAGE IN THE SPANISH MONARCHY

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SICARI, A. M.

(2006), Nel «Castello interiore» di Santa Teresa d’Avila. Introdotto da L’inacessibile Castello - Da Frank

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(1994), «O Livro de Duarte de Armas», in A arquitectura militar na expansâo por-

tuguesa, Lisbon, Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, pp. 101-106.

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(2004), Rinascimento segreto. Il mondo del segretario da Petrarca a Machiavelli, Milan, Franco

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en la época de Felipe II, second edition, Madrid, Fondo de Cultura Económica.

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Back to Contents

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7 Luis Pizaño and his Projects for Roses: Idea, Drawing and Decision PABLO DE LA FUENTE DE PABLO1 Vistula University Translation: DIANE SCHOFIELD

ABSTRACT

In 2002, in Amsterdam I came across an atlas with several drawings of Spanish fortifications. Two of them were plans of Roses and Trinity Castle. Six years later I managed to locate the same drawings at Simancas. A detailed study of the findings reveals that both plans were made by Luis Pizaño’s draughtsman Joan Francolí in 1546.

KEYWORDS

Roses, Trinity Castle, Luis Pizaño, Duke of Alba, decision making, lesson learned.

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A BED OF ROSES FULL OF THORNS

In the year 2002, thanks to a somewhat stormy process, I came into contact with a Dutch antiquarian who was anxious to sell an abundant collection of antiquarian books and manuscripts. Featured among them was a manuscript atlas with about twenty plans, many of which were incomplete and the majority of which were not very specific. I identified among them two very interesting plans of Roses – only by means of the drawing, as there was no explicit written mention – and, at least, a third one of another Catalonian fortress which is not the subject of this article.

It so happens that there was a misunderstanding in my relation with the abovementioned antiquarian. I thought that he had requested my aid as an expert. However, his interest was more prosaic. He thought that I would be a possible buyer or agent interested in mediating in the sale of what he called the Spanish atlas. This was the name he gave it as someone had already told him that this was the language used in its scant inscriptions.

Given the situation and the price asked, I got into contact with a colonel from the Spanish Ministry of Defence. They had published my degree thesis in book form three years before and I thought that they were the ideal institution to make the purchase.

After a long telephone conversation with my interlocutor in the Ministry, his position riled me. If I sent him a report attesting that these plans were documents belonging to the kingdom of Spain, they would get into contact with Interpol and the Spanish embassy in The Hague to initiate their recovery. I made him see that this position would get us nowhere. There was no evidence that the acquisition of the atlas had been illicit. Moreover, it was not a case of going back to the Eighty Years’ War. Without wishing to be exhaustive, in neighbouring Belgium there is an abundance of Spanish military documentation in their national archives which had never caused conflict between both countries2. Nowadays, the attitude of the aforesaid colonel could seem somewhat primitive. However, in its defence it should be underlined that during that time the topic of historical documentation was at the forefront of political debate in Spain; more precisely the controversy around the Salamanca Papers. In spite of the fact that the dispute with the Government of Catalonia included documents which were in the charge of the then National Historical Archive belonging to the Ministry of Culture, in Defence it was feared that the plundering of the archives would also affect them, given that the General Military Archive of Avila possessed documents from the Defence Department of the Catalonian Government.

After this matter had finally come to nothing, José J. de Castro, who I coincided with in the Simancas archive in 2008, brought my attention to a plan which he considered to be of Trinity Castle in Roses. It was an identical copy of one of the two plans of Roses which I had seen years before. A lapsus in its cataloguing still describes it as «Plan of the fortification in Montpellier»3. Its reference undoubtedly comes from reading its graphic scale, in Montpellier cannes, a model used by the engineer Luis Pizaño in his Catalonian projects. Looking for other plans in the Simanca archive described in a similar fashion, I located the second plan of Roses identical to the one I saw in Amsterdam years before.

In this case it was of the town, with the execution of the ephemeral construction carried out by this same engineer4.

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THE DRAWINGS

A first element to be highlighted is that there is no indication whatsoever that they had not been completed.

Trinity Castle Although it is not in the least explicit, in this plan, reproduced in Figure 1, three details can be appreciated which, when analyzed, permit it to be dated with a certain amount of accuracy to around the first half of 1546: a) The ravelin, an element which was originally present in the 1543 project is conspicuous by its absence. The very Duke of Alba himself makes precise mention of it in a letter of 21st May «protect that tower on the mountain and build a ravelin on it»5. It is accredited that these exterior works were built between the end of 1547 and well into 15516. Thus the first date would be a reliable terminus ante quem. b) On the platform for the lower battery there is the inscription «embankment for the present», which tells of the provisionality of the said embankment. It would not be until well into the 50s when three casemates would be built to accommodate the

FIG. 1 Planta del castillo de la Trinidad, ca. 1546. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, LVIII-37.

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hundred or so men who made up the war garrison7. This later construction belongs to the original project. Pizaño mentions in 1544 that «we will be making the platform where the artillery will be … (which) at present will be an embankment»8. As it was urgent to get the defences ready, around these dates, when the walls were finished, the keeper was designated and the castle was armed9. In order to lodge the garrison, Pizaño says that in the absence of casemates, he will order the building of «some houses to lodge the soldiers made of wood [sic]»10. These barracks do not appear in the drawing, which makes it possible to infer that the accommodation of the garrison had to be provisionally solved in some other way due to the stoppage in the work a little later on. c) On the plan only the central part of the three which make up the casemates supporting the upper battery is evident. Just before work was suspended, on 9th May 1544, Pizaño, from Roses, limits his objective «to finishing the vaults on the inside from the middle upwards» as «I could not make use of the artillery above them to help the port»11. This aspect represents a major flaw in the power and rate of defensive fire. However, on 25th of the same month «The work on the castle is not being done because of lack of moneys»12. With work stopped in the middle of June, the engineer states that «the parapet and a vault, which has to be built in the middle of it (castle) for the platform»13 were still to be done. In this communication, in contrast to the one written on 9th May, he was not sufficiently ingenious when he used the word «vault» in the singular. In any case he should have used the word vaulted to refer to the whole of the platform for the upper battery, «because the other half [of the castle plan] is an embankment [on which the lower battery will be located] and it is done». The conclusion is obvious: the only casemate which appears in the drawing was not built in 1544 and this is, therefore, the terminus post quem.

Having analyzed these three constraints, it should be added that new funds were not provided for the work until the end of 1545, with the building beginning again well into 1546, when Pizaño went back to Roses for the last time14. In the middle of June the engineer left Catalonia, although it would not be until the end of the year, when Pizaño was already serving in Germany, that the Viceroy Aguilar would report that «the Castle is finished»15. To understand this statement contextually presupposes the conclusion of the body of the fortification of the casemates absent in the analyzed drawing, except for the three lowest ones, as the primitive embankment was not cleared and the platform for the lower battery not built until well into the 50s. Conclusion: without the shadow of a doubt the drawing of Trinity Castle can be dated to the first half of 1546.

Roses The plan of the town, as it appears in Figure 2, in spite of the significant absence of the toponym, coincides to a sufficient degree with the restitution of this town carried out by Marcel Pujol in the middle of the sixteenth century16. Its main features are: the Benedictine «monesterio» [monastery incorrectly spelled] of Santa Maria; the medieval urban

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FIG. 2 Planta de la villa de Rosas con los trabajos de fortificación en tierra y fajinas realizados en 1544. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, LVIII-36.

layout inside the walls highlighting the main street, cited explicitly as the «cala major», and the port suburb, the dock and its defence tower; or the «river» de la Trencada, the only one which flows into the sea at the side of the town17. If the modern defensive belt of earth and wattle is added to all these elements, the conclusion is that we are looking at the works carried out by the engineer Luis Pizaño in 154418.

THE ENGINEER WHO WAS NOT A DRAUGHTSMAN

Both drawings reflect the fortifications built from Pizaño’s projects. However, being somewhat iconoclastic with the title of this article, Luis Pizaño in this case proves to be the antithesis of the engineer draughtsman. In the summer of 1543, when he was in Empordà occupied with the defence of Roses, a draughtsman appeared called Joan Francolí who stated that he was at the orders of «capitán pisanyo» [sic], explicitly alluding to the «drawings and other things which his highness the captain has ordered to be done by my hand»19. Without doubt, Francolí is the draughtsman of a well known drawing of the Gulf of Roses [FIG. 3], which had no date or known author until now, but which from its contents and support can be dated to 154320. Although it accompanied a «Relation and liquidation of the importance of the county of Empordà» among the papers of the royal secretary Joan Comalonga dated that year, not exactly an engineering document, the drawing of the centre of Empordà certainly is21. On this drawing can be seen the inscrip-

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FIG. 3 El golfo de Rosas visto desde el Puig Rom, ca. 1543. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, XIX-168.

tion in Catalan «la trinitat» in letters of a somewhat gothic style, and indicated in a more chancellery style and careful hand in Castilian that «this is the tower t[hat] has to be fortified». This is not a mere anecdote, as another technical addition appears on the southern part of the Gulf in which it is indicated in the same hand that «here there should be another tower so that the entry to the port can be defended from both». This dimorphism is made even more patent when the toponym indicates «castelló» and the chancellery style note reads «Castellón». If the type of letter and language are significant clues to the presence of two hands in the drawing, the different use of the letter ñ and the digraph ny, its Catalan equivalent, is definitive. While in 1543 Francolí in a rather rough Castilian insists in another missive that he is employed by «captain pisanyo», in one of the notes on the contemporary drawing Puig Rom is described as a «montaña»22.

The conclusion is obvious: the chancellery style annotations in Castilian are holographic notes by the engineer.

Francolí entered into the service of Pizaño through the personal mediation of an intriguer of the stature of Francisco de los Cobos23. Together with the Duke of Alba and Cardenal Granvela they constituted the triumvirate of counsellors at the highest level with the Emperor Charles V. Comalonga, among whose documents was found the misplaced drawing of Francolí, was the main Catalonian link for Cobos and, thus, as a good client, a telltale of the political and other gossip from Barcelona of interest to the powerful nobleman24.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

The question is obvious: Is Francolí the draughtsman of the drawings dealt with in this article? A first clue is the common technique of the three drawings. They are all painted with ink and wash. A technique as beautiful as it is difficult, the key point being knowing how to correctly dilute the ink to be able to – as can unequivocally be seen in the drawings analyzed – reproduce on the paper the different bands of light and shade.

The aureole of Francolí again appears due to the Catalonian character of the material author of the two drawings. The spelling gives him away. For example, in one of the inscriptions of Trinity Castle he mentions the «tore viega» [old tower] to designate the medieval watchtower. For a Castilian of the Golden Age, the doubt could arise between writing vieja or viexa, but he would never use a g25. It is evidence that the phoneme [χ], nonexistent in Catalan, was not part of the draughtsman’s native language. Another item in this sense is when he refers to the only casemate in the castle which he roughly defines as «aposientos ensima de la plasa par ertilaria [sic]» [rooms over the fortress for artillery].

If another indication of what has been said is the forced seseo [pronouncing an s when it should be the θ sound] in encima, as in Catalan the phoneme [θ] does not exist, it is symptomatic to write artillería [artillery] confusing the e with the a and vice versa in the first and third syllables, proof that the neutral Catalan vowel [ə] was part of the draughtsman’s phonetics. That the draughtsman is Catalan with rudiments of Castilian is confirmed in the cardinal direction «tremontana» [tramontane] present in both drawings.

When he has to put a neutral vowel in black and white he again writes an e when a Castilian would use an a. This detail is repeated in the second plan where the Benedictine monastery of Santa María is briefly described as «monesterio».

In contrast to the careless writing used three years before, Francolí does much better inscribing both drawings with fine capital letters. More refined inscriptions, but with a lapsus as he forgot the legend to the graphic scale, which is corrected by an annotation in the same chancellery style that Pizaño had displayed some time before «of Montpellier cannes is the small foot of this platform».

PERFECTLY ORGANIZED CHAOS

When in 2002 I was able to leaf through the Dutch atlas, I related my first hypothesis to explain its peculiar apparition to the journeys undertaken in the life of our protagonist.

The drawings must have been part of the paperwork that the long-suffering engineer had carried around during his stay in Flanders between 1549 and 1550 and for some unknown reason, they had remained there. In 1546, after visiting Roses for the last time, he had abandoned Spain to place himself under the orders of the Duke of Alba. Once there, he took charge of the artillery in the Imperial army which would end up defeating the Schmalkaldic League the following year in the Battle of Mühlberg26.

What I have called an atlas were several sheets of paper sewn together without a cover or any type of heading as a front page, preface or dedication27. This makes it possible to infer that its sober composition responds to that of a working document carried in a roll by the engineer to facilitate his work duties; questions of fortification which, as can be appreciated, he discussed with the irascible Alba. Even more so when Pizaño had dis-

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obeyed him, as the main military advisor of the Emperor Charles V had urged the monarch at the end of 1545 to finance new works in Roses in order to convert the embankments of the town into permanent structures and set aside the castle28. Precisely the opposite of what the engineer had finally done on his recent visit.

The other aspect of the no less extravagant appearance of identical plans in Simancas is, if possible, even more complicated. There is no evidence in the bundle of documents of a referral document; nor draught, receipt or note issued by some court scribe. It can be inferred, therefore, that it was not an official document to process some enquiry for a board or council. Moreover, before his exit from Catalonia, Pizaño delivered to the maestre de campo José de Guevara, at the time Captain General of the Perpignan frontier, the military region to which Roses belonged, an enormous quantity of papers29. Among the five books deposited in Perpignan in June 1546, one stands out and contains «the account of Roses» described as «without parchment covers». Moreover, he left a dozen articles which he calls a «bundle»: one described as «dealing with the accounts of Roses» and another which he mentions more succinctly as «with reference to Roses»; and a third listed as a «round bundle of drawings». All this suggests that Pizaño handed over the main book of accounts of the works on Trinity castle, two files of loose papers which contained receipts, lists, official documents, texts, etc., and, finally, a roll which contained charts, plans and drawings.

There is reliable confirmation that part of this documentation from Perpignan was sent to the castle of Simancas. Thus one of the ten rolls entitled «description which is necessary of the weight and the artillery and munitions and what it fires and how much it weighs» was located in this archive by José Aparici in the middle of the nineteenth century and used by other authors30. Both studied drawings are some of the contents of the roll of papers from Perpignan left by Pizaño in 1546. This is confirmed by the fact that in the 90s I located some of Pizaño’s official correspondence which came from one of the two files31.

The fact that both plans were taken from the tube and filed in the same archive, in an identical series and only five numbers apart in the register is not a mere coincidence32.

The analysis of both plans, which give no information about where they are from, who drew them or at what date they were completed, is the prototype of what a structuralist would define as a synchronic study. It is true that I have searched for all the clues to define their origin, give them a date and endow them with an author. However, implicitly, these drawings are essential links in such a paradigmatically diachronic story as that of the fortifications of the Gulf of Roses. As witnessed by an extended operative lifetime which embraces four centuries.

A PRUDENT AND WISE CAPTAIN

Luis Pizaño embodies the paradigm of a courageous Spanish soldier. It is worth going back two decades, when he was the protagonist of an epic episode which gives the measure of his unrivalled daring. They were not the walls of Troy, but those of Marseille besieged by the imperial troops, that formed the backdrop to the feat of the Spanish Achilles. One of the defenders ventured out into no man’s land and challenged to a duel

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any Spaniards who wanted to do combat with him. The then Sergeant Pizaño broke ranks.

When our Achilles was going to finish him off, a comrade appeared from the enemy ranks to help the unlucky challenger. At the same moment a harquebusier shot at the Spaniard from the walls. Pizaño was traversed by the bullet which knocked all the teeth out of the right side of his jaw, and came out near his ear. Even so, he did not lose his composure, he spat out the remains of his ruined teeth, killed his challenger and marched determinedly forth to kill his second opponent, who on seeing this, ran away in panic33.

Beyond his confirmed heroism, Pizaño was a soldier with honed technical training.

The Duke of Alba himself, one of the best generals in sixteenth century Europe, recognized that he would «be unable to get around without him»34. For this reason, to paraphrase Cervantes, he was a character in whom the pen, symbol of his projects, never blunted his lance, paradigm of his gallantry. A circumstance which was reflected in the opinion of Juan de Oznaya in his Historia de la guerra de Lombardía [History of the Wars in Lombardy]: «he is one of our time who should most justly be crowned as a valiant warrior, and prudent and wise captain»35.

The commission of Pizaño in Roses in 1546 came about from the insistence of captain Andreu de Biure, future first military governor of Roses, on the «necessity of making a lime and pebble fortification» of the embankments at Roses which can be seen in Figure 236. Although in the background was the impossibility of assuming the cost of the work, the possibility was studied of making a permanent construction just in front of the sea.

Since 1544 a large quantity of lime kept in silos had been waiting to be used in these works, which Pizaño intended to employ exclusively in the castle37. This alternative between both actions would support the idea that the drawing of the town was carried out at the same time as that of the castle. Four arguments support this idea: a) The fact that in Simancas they appear in the same bundle and that in the Dutch copy they were sewn into the same sheets confirms that they are documents with an intrinsic procedural relation. b) The capital letters in both documents reveal an implicit proximity and common chronological distance with the drawing of 1543. c) The drawing of the town reflects the works on the fortifications carried out in 1544.

However, if the plan had been done two years later, the results would have been the same. d) Certainly both drawings illustrate a tactical debate. However, in the Dutch atlas I saw no cartographic material at all. From this it can be inferred that the interlocutor of Pizaño could know the terrain being studied. This person is none other than an expectant Duke of Alba with whom he had studied the matter in situ three years before.

Now is the moment to face the apparent contradiction. In 1543, it was Pizaño who convinced the Duke of Alba of the necessity, and it was the latter that finally made the decision to convert the town of Roses into a fortress. Did Pizaño change his mind three years later? The answer is no. In 1546 Pizaño continued to believe in the need to fortify the town. However, it is necessary to clarify the strategic purpose of Roses in order to

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Castro de Puig Rom

ROSAS

galerías empopadas fuegos rasantes

CASTILLO DE LA TRINIDAD

refugio

zona de prohibición

zona de hostigamiento

The tactical problem inherent in the defence of Rosas Bay. Author’s formulation.

FIG. 4

understand the tactical solution which was worked out. This strategic purpose was to make the bay a large base for galleys. The subsequent defensive challenge was to be able to protect a fleet with guarantees.

In order to fulfil this objective, as can be seen in Figure 4, Trinity Castle was sufficient.

Fermín de Sojo y Lomba’s interpretation is that in the famous drawing of 1543 «the ship that is in the bay is to mark its best anchorage»38. In fact, confirming the technical tone of the drawing, it is a symbol which marks the protected area for the fleet. Its limits would be conditioned by the pre-eminent position of Trinity Castle and the range of the weapons installed in it. It is instructive to note that in this respect the castle was armed mainly with demi-culverins cast in Malaga, with very long barrels in proportion to their calibre39.

They were therefore weapons designed to shoot at a considerable distance: 3,000 paces of maximum range, which was reduced to 1,000 when shooting at point blank range40.

Both facts make it possible to configure the zones of harassment and prohibition. The altitude of the castle, some 60 metres above sea level make it necessary to round up these figures. This estimation is difficult as there are no contrasted data on the initial velocity transmitted to the projectile by the bore of a demi-culverin from Malaga. As an approximate reference, we could say that today it is known that a spherical projectile coming from a muzzleloader which uses gunpowder maintains a stable trajectory at between 340 and 240 m/s41. Given the barrel/calibre ratio, the first figure could be an approximation of the initial velocity and the second could conjecture the impact of a non-stabilized projectile. Taking all these data into account, a battery of these pieces could be fired, achieve impact with some of its shots and reasonably attempt an efficient entry with a massive bombardment at a maximum distance of one kilometre. This would be, coinciding with the nao [Spanish type of carrack] which appears on the drawing of 1543, the radius of the artillery umbrella which the castle batteries could give the ships sheltering under its protection. A second fan shaped area of somewhat more than two kilometres and a half, coinciding with the maximum range of the pieces, would be harassing fire which would not be accurate enough to protect the ships anchored in this sector.

The conclusion of all of these conjectures is that, in spite of the fact that cross fire was possible between Roses and Trinity Castle; with the artillery available in the sixteenth century it was impossible to achieve an intersection of the fan shaped prohibition areas.

Therefore, the firing from Roses, however much it was fortified, extending the walls by the sea and increasing the density of the firing by pointing the prow of the galleys, would only be a help in the defence of the base, but would not be essential.

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In 1546, the dilemma of Pizaño was having available only one battery in the castle in operative conditions. The scant artillery power due to the absence of a superposed firing rate could not guarantee protection for the ships in the presence of a hostile fleet. For this reason, the priority was the construction of the three casemates which supported the second battery. When the engineer left Catalonia, as is evident in Figure 1, one had been built; and at the end of the year, a plethoric Viceroy, on the conclusion of the whole structure, incautiously announced that the castle had been finished. As has been seen, the reality was otherwise, as the construction of the castle carried on until past the middle of the century.

EXPERIENCE IS THE MOTHER OF ALL THINGS

If converting the town of Roses into a modern fortress was a secondary question with the aim of protecting the anchored ships, why is it Pizaño who insists in 1543 that the town should be fortified? He is the one who considers from the beginning «fortifying Roses as the castle alone is not sufficient» and the one who manages to get the Duke of Alba to adopt it as his own idea and defend it at the highest level42.

It is here that the vulnerability of the castle in the face of an amphibious attack must be tackled. This is the reason why Trinity Castle was basically two batteries encircled by a common pincers shaped wall, adequately defended by a squad of harquebusiers and musketeers. The need for fortification had nothing to do with protection from a naval bombardment. Just catering for this variable, a deployment of field artillery at the same position would also predominate. The difference in altitude gave it such a great advantage in combat against any type of vessel that in practice it made an attack from the sea impossible.

Although the protection of the fleet could be guaranteed, the situation was not so positive in the case of a disembarkation of troops. A large part of the western strip of the bay was out of the maximum range of its artillery. Even beyond the prohibition sector, the inaccurate harassing fire was seen to be unable on its own to deter disembarkation.

As can be read in the well known drawing of 1543, illustrated in Figure 3, «this port of roses comes out of the mountains on the same side as the eastern part». This mountain was at that time calle Puig Romà, the main observation point for the study of the terrain undertaken by Alba and Pizaño, in no way a coincidence.

The Grand Duke was convinced that the archaeological remains on this Cerro Romano [Roman hill] – the Castilian translation of the toponym – were the vestiges of the camp of the legionnaires of Marcus Porcius Cato who in 195 BC had successfully taken Rhode43. Alba was an admirer of the military history of Rome, feeling himself to be a sort of reincarnation of Julius Caesar who internalised the strategic, operative and tactical lessons which Antiquity offered. To paraphrase the Roman genius, experience again became the mother of all things. From among many examples, given the operative similarity, his plan for the disembarkation in England which the Great Armada attempted to implement in 1588, fitted like a glove. It was designed by him using the teachings obtained from Caesar’s campaign against the British seventeen centuries before44.

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According to Alba, this same hill on which he debated with Pizaño one spring day in 1543, was the position which had offered Cato and his legions a disembarkation point which dominated this theatre of operations. The lesson which could be learned was eminently obvious. The moment the dominant Cerro Romano was in the hands of the attackers, as with Rhode centuries before, with even more reason if possible, the situation for Trinity Castle would be desperate. The castle could not resist a prolonged attack from this hill regardless of the pincers shaped front and ravelin which they might build to mount an adequate defence. Therefore a second fortification with greater range was necessary in order to be able to resist a powerful disembarkation. This was the role meant for Roses, until that moment a tiny hamlet which was not even the capital of the county of Empordà to which it belonged, which the study by both soldiers intended to convert into one of the most solid and spectacular fortresses in sixteenth century Europe.

Pizaño originally conceived a fortification project which would cover a very long sea front which would act in conjunction with galleys with their bows turned towards the town walls to achieve similar conditions to the superposed fire from Trinity Castle. The upper battery would be the one located in the embrasures on the parapet, while the artillery from the bows of the anchored ships would serve as the lower battery. The defensive organization which can be seen in Figure 2 is a circumstantial fore-wall around the medieval walls executed because of the impossibility of carrying out his original intention. In fact, Bernardino de Mendoza, Captain General of the Spanish galleys, lamented that the shortness of the sea front that had been constructed made it impossible to shelter more ships45. The convergence of the need to fortify Roses and the urban growth associated with the presence of a large garrison and the logistic support of the anchored naval forces is what made Pizaño see the necessity not only of fortifying the town but also of extending it. For this reason, calm consideration on the part of the engineer would lead him to reject the conversion of the two embankments built two years before into permanent constructions. Although the so-called old drawing of Pizaño – in contrast to the one illustrated in Figure 2 – would be definitively abandoned after his death, the fortress built from the drawing of Juan Bautista Calvi also coincides with these tactical and logistic parameters.

The lesson learned almost five centuries later is that the decisions which were made were correct. There are three arguments which illustrate that the excellent talent of both soldiers is beyond debate: a) The four times that the fortress has fallen into the hands of its attackers, has never been through the disembarkation of lots of troops in the bay or its immediate vicinity. This fortification was conceived solely and exclusively for repelling an amphibious attack. Strategically, its rearguard was covered by fortifications of the stature of Perpignan and Salses. It was taken after a long siege in 1645 once the said fortifications had already fallen; in 1693 there was not even defensive cover for the frontier; and in 1795 and 1808 it was conquered when the fortress at Figueres was already in the hands of the French. Moreover, these operations had needed large contingents of troops and a numerous artillery which, had they been planned in the action zone through a disembarkation, would have meant a very complex and almost unrealizable amphibious operation.

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b) Trinity Castle has never been able to offer prolonged resistance once the fortress had fallen into enemy hands, which bears witness to the imperious need for a dual defence.

Furthermore, if the Puig Roma was conquered by an attacker, the defence from Trinity Castle had its days numbered. Once the castle had been lost, the anchoring of its own naval forces was impossible. What happened in 1795 and 1808 is enlightening. c) The only time that there was a successful attack which managed to destroy the ships sheltering in the bay was carried out by the British navy in 1809. It had to attack by night to blind the defences and the French ships which were destroyed were mistakenly anchored outside of the protected area as conceived by Pizaño46.

THE KEY TO THE WHOLE OF SPAIN

Securing Roses was one of the principal challenges in the strategic planning of Imperial Spain. If the story of Cato was a distant instructive reference, immediate experience confirmed its extreme weakness in the face of disembarkation. In 1543, the ineffectiveness of its defences and the scant combativity of the count’s company had made it an easy prey for Barbarossa47. Three years later, securing this «key to the whole of Spain» continued to be unfinished business which worried the Duke of Alba48. How did the Grand Duke react to the measures taken by Pizaño in 1546?

In 1547, after the end of the war against the protestants, the then ailing Emperor Charles V decided from Brussels to summon his son Prince Phillip, the then regent of Spain. This mission was entrusted to Alba in his capacity as High Steward of the Royal Household, who had to personally transmit a series of instructions to the heir49. What is interesting is that, instead of embarking in Antwerp and sailing to some Spanish port on the Cantabrian Sea, Don Fernando crossed Europe to Genoa, accompanied by a large escort, following an itinerary which would later come to be known as the Spanish Road50. I have no explicit mentions of a visit to Roses, but there is a combination of indications which point to this conjecture. As explained by one of his biographers, the route would have been determined by his intention to go to meet Phillip, the prince regent, who was at the General Courts of the Crown of Aragon which were being held in Monzón51. When the Grand Duke arrived in Barcelona, these had concluded and the Prince had returned to Castile. However, there are three reasons for which the matter of Roses seems to have had something to do with this inconvenient route: a) The port of Roses was decisive to secure the journey made by Alba as well as his return accompanying the heir. As well as being a vital port for the concentration of a large fleet which was intended to operate throughout the French Mediterranean coast, the vital maritime corridor from Roses to Genoa would become a prior nautical stage for the troops before starting out on the Spanish Road52. b) In fact one of the matters which it was intended to resolve in these courts was to be able to finance the conversion of Roses into a fortress53. c) If due to the Catalonian political context and the strategic needs of the Empire the question of Roses marked the journey of the Grand Duke, it seems obvious that he would make an inspection visit before arriving in Barcelona.

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The fact that Alba was satisfied with the explanations of Pizaño and with the probable inspection carried out in 1547 is confirmed by the visit of the heir the next year on his return journey. According to a famous chronicle «the Prince without stopping in Roses went on to visit Trinity Castle»54. It was a military event with due ceremonial pomp: a review of the troops, thundering gun salutes from the squad of galleys, etc. If two years before Pizaño had neglected to fortify the embankments at Roses, now the Grand Duke diverted his princely gaze from a clearly deteriorating construction, the solution for which was not able to be undertaken until four years later.

A CAREFULLY CONSIDERED CONLUSION

In one of the headings of this work I alluded in a rather cutting tone to a possible lack of enthusiasm for drawing on the part of Pizaño. It was a truly rhetorical provocation. It is true that this detail of his profile could be adorned with some outstanding characteristics from his biography. According to this reconstruction Pizaño would be characterized as an experienced soldier possessing an extreme facility for understanding tactical problems which the fortress involved but who surrounded himself with collaborators when it was a question of planning the constructional solution. The role of Francolí would fit in with this reconstruction.

Even in the case of Roses this simplistic dichotomy would be served. Pizaño would embody the engineer-gunner, the expert combatant with a magnificent tactical instinct for whom there were aspects of construction which were like a closed book; while his continuer Calvi would be the engineer-architect, who incorporated civil aspects to the military problem of fortifying a city and who was an excellent designer.

However, this conclusion today seems to me to be extremely risky. Concrete studies on this aspect are missing in other works in which Pizaño was occupied. Moreover, the world of drawing transcends his role as an engineer. Pizaño is above all a gunner who enters the world of fortification. There is evidence of his work as a designer of artillery pieces, among them a fabulous half cannon which bears his name55.

Was he really rather untalented as a designer? Or was it his lack of enthusiasm for drawing? Was it perhaps the multitude of matters to do with artillery and fortifications with which he had to occupy himself which made him prioritise which tasks he had to attend to personally and which he could refer to his collaborators? These three questions are neither unique nor incompatible. Thus, another element which should be evaluated is his physical aptitude. When Pizaño arrived in Roses in 1543 he was about 63 years old and he had another seven years left of his rough life marked by exhausting journeys and combats, like the battle of Mühlberg in 1547. To the attacks of gout which he suffered should be added the sequelae of several injuries, among which figure three bullet wounds, one in the face which destroyed some of his teeth, which he received during his long military career56.

Given that I have completed a structuralist exposition, going from the synchronic to the diachronic, I will permit myself to suggest a more systematic tone as a finale. I have no doubt that new studies on this character with other prosopographical approaches will bring more light to this topic.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

NOTES 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

p.delafuente@vistula.edu.pl See PARKER, 2000, passim. [http://www.mcu.es/ccbae/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=177591], consulted on 15/7/2015. [http://www.mcu.es/ccbae/es/consulta/registro.cmd?id=177590], consulted on 15/7/2015.

SOJO, 1927, p. 337.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, p. 287.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, p. 288.

SOJO, 1927, p. 554.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, pp. 326 and ss.

SOJO, 1927, p. 554.

SOJO, 1927, pp. 557-558.

SOJO, 1927, p. 559.

SOJO, 1927, p. 560.

In the text of my doctoral thesis published in Catalan (DE LA FUENTE, 1998, p. 287) there is a misprint which I overlooked when correcting the proofs. Pizaño was in Roses in April 1546, an era during which he also was occupied with works in Perpignan. Confer DE LA FUENTE, 1999, pp. 42-43.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, p. 287.

PUJOL, 1997, pp. 84 and ss.

The hypothesis on the course of the so-called Rec Fondo parallel to the medieval walls and diverted as a consequence of the construction of the fortress already lacked credibility before this plan was located. I tackled this question in an article (DE LA FUENTE, 2002, pp. 360-365) which was sent to the printers weeks before my visit to Amsterdam. Seeing Figure 2, there is no need of further discussion.

The discovery of this document demands the study and reconsideration of some questions which are outside of the scope of this article. On this question, vide DE LA FUENTE, 1998, pp. 75 and ss.

España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas (AGS), Estado, leg. 289, s/f.

SOJO, 1927, p. 364.

AGS, Diversos de Castilla, leg. 40, exp. 10.

AGS, Estado, leg. 289, s/f.

SOJO, 1927, p. 364.

CASALS, 1993, p. 70.

ALONSO, 1947, p. 11.

SOJO, 1927, pp. 491 and ss.

Without leaving Catalona, as a contrast it is interesting to cite a well known atlas by the engineer Ambrosio Borsano which he would dedicate to Don Antonio de Paniagua y Zúñiga, with one of its pages dedicated to Roses. I dealt with this subject in an article on the fortress of Palamós which is in print.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, pp. 81-82.

SOJO, 1927, pp. 486-487.

SOJO, 1927, p. 488.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, pp. 82-83; AGS, Estado, Serie K, leg. 1706. 1706.

Confer AGS, Estado, Series K, legs. 1701 and 1706.

CODOIN, 1861, pp. 307-308.

SOJO, 1927, p. 623.

CODOIN, 1861, p. 307.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, p. 81.

SOJO, 1927, p. 484.

SOJO, 1927, p. 337.

AGS, Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas, 3ª Época, leg. 1354.

VIGÓN, 1947, t. I, p. 234. [http://www.avancarga.com/8_articulos/50/1-vetterli/vetterli_9.htm], consulted on 15/7/2015.

AGS, Estado, leg. 294, s/f.

BUSCATÓ et al., 2001, pp. 65-70.

DE LA FUENTE, 2003, pp. 61-63.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, p. 83.

PUJOL et al., 2014, pp. 141 and ss.

SOJO, 1927, pp. 373 and ss.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, p. 25.

RUSTANT, 1751, t. I, pp. 177-179.

PARKER, 2000, pp. 92-113.

RUSTANT, 1751, t. I, pp. 179-180.

PACINI, 2013, pp. 70 and ss.

DE LA FUENTE, 1998, p. 82.

CALVETE DE ESTRELLA, 1552, f. 7v.

SOJO, 1927, pp. 80-81; VIGÓN, 1947, t. I, p. 220.

SOJO, 1927, passim.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALONSO, A.

(1947), «Trueques de sibilantes en antiguo español», Nueva revista de filología hispánica, I/1, pp. 1-12.

BUSCATÓ, L.; DE LA FUENTE. P. (2001), «El ingeniero Calvi y la concepción de la Nueva Rhode: Historia, Arqueología

e Ingeniería Militar en la Rosas Renacentista», Espacio, tiempo y forma, VII/14, pp. 57-71.

CALVETE DE ESTRELLA, J.C.

(1552), El felicissimo viaie del muy alto y muy Poderoso Principe Don Phelippe, Hijo del

Emperador Don Carlos Quinto, Antwerp, Martin Nucio.

(1993), «La predilecció de Carles V pels catalans. Aportacions a un tòpic recurrent», Pedralbes. Revista

CASALS, A,

d’història moderna, 13-I, pp. 67-73.

CODOIN - Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España (1861), t. XXXVIII, Madrid, Viuda de Calero.

DE LA FUENTE, P. DE LA FUENTE, P.

(1998), Les fortificacions reials del golf de Roses en l’època moderna, Figueras, Brau.

(1999), La ciudad como problema militar: Perpiñán y los ingenieros de la monarquía española,

Madrid, Ministery of Defense.

DE LA FUENTE, P.

(2002), «Aigua, ciutat i territori a la Roses renaixentista», Annals de l’Institut d’Estudis Empor-

danesos, 35, pp. 351-372.

DE LA FUENTE, P.

(2003), «Poner el Támesis en llamas: claves interpretativas de la Gran Armada como fuerza an-

fibia», Revista de Historia Naval, 81, pp. 57-71.

PACINI, A. (2013), «Desde Rosas a Gaeta». La costruzione della rotta spagnola nel Mediterraneo occidentale nel secolo

XVI, Milan, Franco Angeli.

PARKER, G.

(2000), El ejército de Flandes y el Camino Español, 1567-1659. La logística de la victoria y derrota de

España en las guerras de los Países Bajos, Madrid, Alianza.

PUJOL, M.

(1997), La vila de Roses (segles XIV-XVI): aproximació a l’urbanisme, la societat i l’economia a partir dels

capbreus del monestir de Santa Maria de Roses (1304-1565), Figueres, Brau.

PUJOL, M. and DE LA FUENTE, P. (2014), «Roses II or Lamproie: a French storeship sunk in 1809 at the Bay of Roses

(Catalonia, Spain)», Archeologia Postmedievale, 18, pp. 129-143.

RUSTANT, J.V.

(1751), Historia de Don Fernando Alvarez de Toledo (llamado comúnmente el Grande) primero de su

nombre, Duque de Alba, Madrid, Pedro Alonso Padilla.

SOJO, F.

(1927), El capitán Luis Pizaño. Estudio históricomilitar referente a la primera mitad del siglo XVI, Madrid,

Imprenta del Memorial de Ingenieros.

VIGÓN, J.

(1947), Historia de la artillería española, Madrid, CSIC.

Back to Contents

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8 Alliance or Defence: Military Strategy and Diplomacy in the Spanish Monarchy’s Seventeenth Century Projects for Western Liguria CONSUELO GÓMEZ LÓPEZ1 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Translation: MARGARET CLARK

ABSTRACT

This chapter reviews the Crown’s seventeenth century engineering projects for highly strategic western Liguria and in particular the port at Finale. It analyses the effect of military operations and the differences between the Duchy of Milan’s and the Spanish Embassy at Genoa’s views on territorial organisation and control on their (non-) implementation.

KEYWORDS

Spanish Monarchy, engineers, diplomacy, Liguria, Duchy of Milan, reputation, ports and fortifications, cartography.

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MAINTAINING HEGEMONY IN A STRATEGIC AREA

Territorial control and security, which played such a significant role in maintaining and safeguarding the Spanish Crown’s «imperial edifice», is the key to understanding a fair share of seventeenth century political, economic and military policies. That concern informed a political culture that revolved largely around the contention between the centre and the periphery: between the decisions characteristic of centralised power located at the Court and the decisions adopted locally on behalf of that power by men acting «out of His Majesty’s sight»2. They were sheltered by the legitimacy afforded their actions by the Council of State, which acted as the gears in a smoothly running machine.

The west Ligurian Riviera between Port Maurizio and Genoa is a paradigmatic example of that contention. By the mid-sixteenth century, the area’s exceptional geostrategic location made it the focal point of intense political, military and diplomatic activity that emanated outward across its borders into the Mediterranean and Italy, and to the rest of Europe through Milan3. The extensive textual and pictorial records still conserved in a number of European archives and collections that attest to that activity also provide valuable information about power and its mechanisms for territorial control. They all depict a region whose significance hinges on its position relative to others. This was something that Charles V himself had realised and specified in his 1548 «political will» in which he advised his successor to pay attention to Genoa «...for its ymportance for the security not only of all of Ytaly, of Naples, Sicily and Milan, but for all of Spain’s other kingdoms and the yslands of Sardinia, Mallorca and Minorca»4. The Spanish Crown’s military engineer Giorgio Palearo Fratino, likewise sensitive to the issue, translated it to territorial action. In his 1571 report appended to the first design for a port at Varigotti, he specified the distances between it and two essential enclaves: Finale, a strategic site destined to become the epicentre of the disputes between the Spanish monarchy and its ally, the Republic of Genoa, over the control of the west Ligurian coast; and Milan, the fortress city on which control of the «theatre of war» depended5.

Fratino wrote in his report: «…vederra nel’dissegno tanto della fortezza quanto dil porto ... il qual’porto e, lontanno del borgo da Finale miglia 3 e, signato sopra il disegno, et questo Stato de Finale e distante del Stato da milano miglia 28 e tutti questi miglia 28 siranno derenti di queto Stato di milano, il che tutto fidelmente riferisco a V.eccetia pregando nro. Sr. Et P.»6.

Over 60 years later, in 1633, Milanese senator Juan Ruiz de la Laguna expressed much the same opinion in his Memorial sobre la conveniencia de edificar un puerto en el Marquesado de Finale, addressed to Crown Prince and Cardinal Ferdinand7. Adopting a position of exquisite balance between military and strictly governmental concerns, he enumerated the reasons why Finale should be an essential element in Habsburg geopolitics. The project was to favour «the universal good of all of Christianity...», inasmuch as it would ensure the passage of troops from Spain, Naples and Sicily to Europe, in addition to affording other essential benefits: staving off privateering, controlling trade in highly profitable goods such as salt and silver from the Iberian Peninsula to Flanders and solving the problem of travel between Italy and the southeast coast of Spain across the Mediter-

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Borders between Mallare and the Marquisate of Finale (second half of the sixteenth century). 615 x 870 mm. Archivio di Stato di Torino, Carte topografiche e disegni, confini con Genova, File 19, 1.

FIG. 1

ranean. These, indeed, were the factors that drove fortification and defence projects in the area throughout the seventeenth century8.

Finale consequently played the same role as other small states created by a world power to guarantee its hegemony over a strategic area9. This approach supplemented the Crown’s carefully designed strategy for territorial control consisting in the establishment of garrisons at sites near the western coast of Italy or the purchase of new fiefs (Novara, Monaco) to ensure its command over the Mediterranean-Flemish corridor10. It entailed creating a network of ports to serve the Crown’s interests, capitalising on the geopolitical advantage that could be gleaned from the ports in western Liguria (Port Maurizio, Albenga, Loano, Savona and Vado). These strongholds constituted a sort of armour that provided for both defence and the circulation of people and goods. With that dual aim in mind, the Crown was obliged to stay on good terms with its ally, designing what A. Pacini called an «area strategy»11 governed by the need for entente, for a balance between alliance and defence. The diplomatic activity conducted by one of the monarchy’s most important embassies in Italy was largely based on that balance, which is the key to interpreting the Crown’s seventeenth century fortification and defence endeavours in western Liguria. Hence the ambassadors to Genoa were advised that Philip II’s interests would be better served by a free republic «than building a castle»12 in it and that a rich and independent, and therefore satisfied Genoa, would be more willing to provide such services as might be needed13.

MILITARY STRATEGY AND DIPLOMACY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY PROJECTS FOR WESTERN LIGURIA

199

Veduta a volo d’uccello di un assedio a la città di Finale (first half of the sixteenth century). In FRANCESCO DE Piante di Fortificazione, in parte incise, in parte a mano, vol. I. 481 x 375 mm. Archivio Stato di Torino. Biblioteca Antica. Mss. Z.III.14 C. 25.

FIG. 2

MARCHI.

While this (in practice) symbiotic relationship, which gave rise to what is known as the Spanish-Genovese system, lasted for some time, it spawned a fair number of conflicts14. The resulting scenario had significant implications for fortification and defence designs, for the Spanish monarchy’s passion for projects on the western coast was scantly requited. Decisions were informed by the permanent paradox between the acknowledgement of the need for and the utility of planning and undertaking projects designed at Milan, defended by political circles, and the unanimous acknowledgement in those same circles of the inadvisability of doing so for reasons of political strategy. Some of the elements of that paradox can be explained by the information contained in the diplomatic documents exchanged by the allies. These records show, for instance, that the military tactics imposed by Milan, in charge of the area’s organisation, based on plans for defensive projects to settle territorial conflicts, displayed a general lack of adaptation to a region whose control was governed by and operated more effectively under diplomatic rules and alliances. What should have been a single axis, Milan-Genoa, was thereby converted into two realities, united but incompatible in this respect. The dispute between military and political-diplomatic control constituted the key to the uncertain fate of projects that, while unrealised, consumed a considerable share of the Crown’s economic and human resources15. They were nonetheless justified by diplomatic circles as a strategy to adapt

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Il Borgo de Finale. In Piante delle fortificazione delle città, Piazze e Castelli dello Stato di Milano (second half of the seventeenth century). Archivio di Stato di Torino. Biblioteca Antica, Mss. J.B.III.2.

FIG. 3

Finale. In Piante delle fortificazione delle città, Piazze e Castelli dello Stato di Milano (second half of the seventeenth century). Archivio di Stato di Torino. Biblioteca Antica, Mss. J.B.III.2.

FIG. 4

to changing military or diplomatic circumstances, for «…i principi e repubbliche fanno e disfanno quando occorre e quando porta così la congiontura e positura delle faccende del mondo»16. This constant «doing and undoing» or «doing and redoing» was also an outcome of the monarchy’s commercial, military and political strategies, consistently designed around its ally’s relative geopolitical position and such significant concerns as maintaining its reputation.

The alliance between Spain and the republic, whereby the monarchy provided military protection as well as possible upward mobility for Genovese elites in exchange for loans, naval resources and the use of its soil for travel to Italy and Europe, legitimised the Crown to participate in building fortifications and defences in west Ligurian ports and roads. The site of such operations in an ally’s rather than in its own territory limited the monarchy’s ability to implement a plan to fortify the republic’s west coast ports.

That did not prevent it, however, from establishing relations with Genoa to participate in such works, especially in two strategic enclaves: Savona and Finale. The former, regarded as the «l’occhio diritto della Republica»17, could be used to control the route to Piedmont and Monferrato and protect it from an attack from the west, making it the target of several powers’ ambitions18. Its custody therefore became a priority after

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201

Spain’s intervention, for the empire had also included the control of Savona as one of its objectives, hence justifying its entitlement to defensive intervention19. The century witnessed a number of such interventions, determined by the necessary albeit circumstantial cooperation between allies in defence of their mutual interests. Nonetheless, the monarchy never applied its resources to operations in its own enclave, Finale20, although plans to integrate it as a key element in the defence of the Duchy of Milan were never lacking, judging from the intense design activity engaged in by Crown engineers working out of Milan. Giorgo Palearo Fratino, Gabrielle Busca, Juan de Medici, Cristóbal Lechuga, Giuseppe Piotti («Il Vacallo»), Francesco Prestino, Giulio Martelli and Gaspare Beretta all formed part of a «coaction network» governed by objectives of a wider scope than a given state’s local issues. Its three main nodes were the Council of State as decision-making hub, diplomacy recast as the Council’s executive arm, and the Duchy’s government21.

FINALE IN THE DUCHY OF MILAN’S «CHAIN OF DEFENCE»

Evidence that Finale formed a de facto part of Milan’s political, military and financial organisation lies in its inclusion by Gabrielle Busca, ducal and cameral military engineer, in his Descritione delle fortezze di frontiera dello Stato di Milano (1602). At the time, the monarchy was engaged in a new endeavour to gain political and administrative control of the marquisate and the Earl of Fuentes, governor of Milan, was formulating a project to defend the strategic sites that connected Lombardy to the Netherlands. This was the backdrop against which Busca, at Fuentes’s urging, formulated his Descrittione, consisting in reports and drawings of strategic sites that formed a «chain» of defence built around the interconnections among a series of strongholds that constituted Milan’s protective belt, «Tutti i quali luoghi quasi anelli di una catena si vanno incatenando et collegando l’uno all’altro et rinchiudendo la più parte de confini dello stato»22. Most of these were enclaves located within the bounds of the duchy, where the underlying principle, «design in times of peace to defend in times of war», was explicitly invoked in 1614 in a project to build a port at Finale that recommended «building it now in times of peace and quiet... rather than when forced into it»23.

Unsurprisingly, then, Finale was included in an order issued by Philip IV around 1640 to submit to Madrid designs for strongholds in the state of Milan. That at least may be deduced from information furnished by Ambassador Juan de Eraso, according to whom the king had requested a plan view of the fortification at Finale on which construction was begun in 1642 to designs authored by Francesco Prestino, «engineer from the state of Milan who had designed the fortifications for Finale during the times of the Marquis of Leganés»24. In his day, the latter was in charge of the strongholds in the western region of the Duchy for which the king had requested the drawings. Given the royal insistence on the matter, after the fortification was built, the ambassador reported: «in conformity therewith an engineer will stake out the plan view and then I shall have the best painter we have here paint it to send Y.Mg. a picture in which the fortifications will be more distinctly visible»25. Interestingly, the procedure proposed by Ambassador Juan de Eraso,

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LEONARDO DE FERRARI. Puerto para hazer en Varigotto para el Final. In Plantas de diferentes plazas de España, Italia, Flandes y las Indias. Military Archives, Stockholm, Sweden, KrA/0414/0025, 115.

FIG. 5

FIG. 6 LEONARDO DE FERRARI. Planta del Final. In Plantas de diferentes plazas de España, Italia, Flandes y las Indias.

Military Archives, Stockholm, Sweden, KrA/0414/0025. 114.

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i.e., painting copies and reproductions based on a plan view, was similar to the method used by a near contemporary, painter Leonardo de Ferrari (ca 1650-55), in the Marquis of Heliche’s Atlas.

The atlas included illustrations of Finale, two splendid chorographies that served propagandistic, strategic and informative purposes: a plan view of the town and a design for a port at Varigotti. In these drawings the fortifications were set in the surrounding geographic area to highlight its immense strategic value, depicting not only the whole but also the details attesting to its military and commercial merits. These included the traffic volumes that could be borne by the inland road, the impregnability of the fort and the natural features that made its coast an excellent site for a port. The steep mountains that protected the enclave from inland attack were another advantage, for they determined the layout of the roads leading out of the town toward the Duchy as well as the sites of the defence structures at the top of the cliffs at the mouth of the port. All these factors were assessed time and again by the engineers commissioned to design the port and are present in all the illustrations conserved, some of which more than likely served as inspiration for Ferrari. The aforementioned drawing by Giorgio Palearo Fratino may have been one and an illustration by Giuseppe Piotti («il Vacallo») dated in 1614, with which Ferrari’s depiction of Varigotti Port bore considerable resemblance, another26. Like his predecessor, Ferrari stressed the port’s enormous strategic value for the monarchy’s defence of Milan, revisiting the by then decades-old aspiration to make Finale its port. His proposal focused on the two enclaves (Varigotti and Cabrazoppa) that monopolised the debate among engineers and statesmen around the natural characteristics most amenable to building a safe harbour for both military and commercial use. Such concerns concurred with threats to the enclave from France and the Saboyas and with a Memorial submitted by Jerónimo de Faunes y Muñoz (ca 1654) to Philip IV on the need to design a port at Varigotti27.

Designs for the Port at Finale: War, Politics and Diplomacy Giorgio Palearo Fratino, Halfway between Pictures and Words The first attempt to build a port at Finale was a design authored by Milanese engineer Giorgio Palearo Fratino, who was commissioned to inspect the state of the fortifications at Finale and visit the port at Varigotti «alone and most discreetly». Thereafter he was to send the Court a report with drawings showing the condition of the port and the details of a design for the intervention «della maniera que di presente si ritrova quanto que abbia da esser». In the absence of any drawings, which have not been found, the report contains information of utmost interest. It explains the colour code used by the engineer to distinguish between the existing structures and the new works to be performed, the relationship between the town of Finale and the port and coastline, and the condition of the port: closed to prevent its use and with «una torre rossa antiqua, che é alzata braza 32 et ha vicino due fontane bone et continove…una torre dil mollo antigua et una gabella antiqua et alcuni pezzi di muraglia dove si ligaanole nave et altri vaselli al tempo che si vara detto porto…»28. That served as a prologue for the description of his design: a port for 70 galleys plus another 25 vessels, defended by a fortress 1200

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fathoms around on the cliff at the mouth of the port that would be inexpensive to build and maintain. In other words, he proposed a military port to reinforce the transport network, to be built in the sole maritime enclave on the Ligurian coast that was not in Genoa’s possession29. His drawings consequently depicted the surrounds, so important from the standpoint of territorial strategy as a whole, which associated the port with the roads to Milan.

Despite its utility, the project was thwarted by order of the king himself on the grounds of reports from Juan Andrea Doria about the republic’s discontent. From then on, keeping Genoa happy to keep Milan safe and protect the imperial structure became an unchallenged principle that systematically foiled projects proposed time and again but which never materialised due to diplomatic manoeuvring.

That was not, however, incompatible with the acknowledgement of the strategic importance of the project throughout the seventeenth century. The Earl of Fuentes, Spanish Governor of the Duchy of Milan, included it in his plan to protect a corridor that would be used to move Spanish troops, beginning at Finale and ending at the earl’s fortress30. Fuentes, in conjunction with the Governor of the marquisate, Pedro de Toledo, revived the project in 1605 with the support of the Spanish ambassador at Genoa, Juan Vivas de Cañamás, and of Andrea Doria, who warned the king of the implications for the monarchy of having no port of its own between Barcelona and Naples: «whereby it seems good that the state of Finale is in Y. Mg.’s hands for these occasions to land people and others and it would be wise to build a wharf large enough for at least a few galleys»31. At the time the project was associated with engineers Gabrielle Busca and Cristóbal Lechuga «persons of great ingenuity, art and practice in such matters» who had been asked by Fuentes in 1602 to write a report on the most suitable site for the port32. Whilst implementation was again denied by the Council of State, which ruled against building a port or wharf to ensure Genoa’s fidelity, for the first time the project was given another purpose: to exert political and diplomatic pressure with which to tilt the scales in favour of Spanish interests «for landing the infantry carried by the galleys at Finale would be a wise decision, to remind them that if Y.Mg. so wished, you have a place on your own soil from which to send people to the state of Milan, with no need to land them elsewhere...»33. The Council of State’s instructions to the ambassador at Genoa in 1680 attest to the persistence over time of this strategy.

Fearing an alliance between France and the republic, Council asked the ambassador to threaten Genoa with the construction of a port as «the sole means of keeping the Genovese in line»34.

For these and other reasons in connection with the Crown’s finances, the project, already reduced to a wharf for 250-300 t vessels, was narrowed down under the pressure of the ambassadors, who went so far as to comment on the conception and characteristics of the designs themselves. In 1605 the ambassador told the king «...having a wharf for just a few galleys would be advisable, for a port would be too long an endeavour»35. In 1609 he ultimately proposed that it should be only «for galleys and small vessels, which is less costly and quicker and would protect Milan equally well and would not provoke as much resentment in the populace». And he mentioned a drawing «showing the site, the winds and the shape of the wharf or port...» that would be sent to Madrid for review

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by the Earl of Fuentes «...who will know what is best». No design drawings have been conserved nor is there any clear proof that the project ever materialised, as it may have been postponed yet again for fear of «stirring up trouble» among the Genovese population during a period of entente36.

Engineering and Politics in a Coaction Network: the Design Authored by Giuseppe Piotti, «Il Vacallo» In this context of comings and goings, two splendid illustrations for the design authored in 1616 by engineer Giuseppe Piotti, «Il Vacallo», acquire particular value.

This was indisputably the most ambitious project undertaken until then and the one that came closest to seeing the light. In fact, works were begun after its approval by the king, although they were subsequently suspended, again as a result of the strategic and economic priorities imposed by circumstances: the need to settle conflicts at Valtellina and Piedmont37. Not to mention the fierce opposition it prompted among the Genovese. «Il Vacallo» deployed two representational methods in his drawings: a chorography with an aerial view of the port from an inland vantage with elevation views of the buildings designed; and a plan view from offshore focusing on the more technical aspects of the project: floor plans of the constituent structures, identified in the legend. Interestingly, both of these ink and watercolour designs highlighted the value of the works relative to the surrounding area. Based on his experience as a highly reputed military and civil engineer in the Duchy of Milan, «Il Vacallo» took Fratino’s approach one step further. He proposed a design which, while heir to G.P. Fratino’s, added to the initial military purpose a second use: trade. To that end, new spatial determinants had to be borne in mind. Moreover, «Il Vacallo» hailed from a military tradition that drew from engineering theory, along with G. Maggi, G.F. Castriotto, G.F. Fiammelli and G. Busca, authors all of treatises that called for ports to be designed to the natural conditions of the terrain38. In the report appended to «Il Vacallo’s» drawings, the engineer appraised the natural conditions of the enclave, proposing a port with a 3800 palm «turning circle» (by which he meant the obstacle-free manoeuvring space) and nonetheless apt for 100 galleys and all manner of vessels. It would be built at Varigotti, a bay on the east end of Finale protected by a high cliff, the site proposed for a castle that would ensure «Milan’s safety and inspire fear in Your Majesty’s enemies»39. It would have warehouses, a customs office, a dockyard to build galleys, galleons and other vessels, and a military hospital. The proximity of freshwater streams would support flour, olive oil and paper mills, and source three fountains in the port itself, which would be serviced by a road to Finale 30 hands wide for people and goods boarding or landing.

All those elements were clearly represented and identified in the engineer’s ambitious design and described in the attached report. More than the characteristics of the project, the object of interest here is how their definition was affected by the internal debate conducted by the ambassadors, duchy and marquisate governors, members of the armed forces and of the Council of State and engineers who formed part of the coaction network and together designed the strategy for political and military territorial organisation. The main source for reconstructing that network is Senator Juan Ruiz de

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FIG. 7 GIUSEPPE PIOTTI «Il Vacallo». Elevato del Porto e fortezza di Varigotti, ca.1616. 395 x 555 mm. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 08, 077.

FIG. 8 GIUSEPPE PIOTTI «Il Vacallo». Pianta del Porto di Varigotti como ha d’essere finito, con il forte, ca. 1616. 653 x 460 mm.

España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 11, 015.

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la Laguna’s 1633 Memorial, in which he described a Milan and Finale Governors’ initiative to build a large military and commercial port in the wake of the Genovese refusal to allow Spanish troops to land at its ports. The text also contends that the commercial use of the enclave at Finale would enrich the royal treasury40. To formulate the proposal for submission to the Council of State with the imperative «drawings and reports», a commission whose membership included Field Marshal Juan de Medici, Captain Giuseppe Piotti («Il Vacallo») and cameral engineers Francisco Balduino and Antonio Barca visited the enclave. Accompanied by the ambassador to Genoa and the Governors of Milan and Finale, they were to determine the best site for the port and define the project details41.

The «various opinions on the suitability of the site expressed by engineers and other prudent and practised people» mentioned by Laguna stand as proof that these engineers, while sharing a discipline, held very different ideas, defending their own and rebutting their opponents’ proposals in their reports and designs. Their debate ranged across many issues: defence, respecting the role to be played by Castelfranco and Castel Govone forts further to military and commercial criteria; trade, regarding the advisability of building a port close to the city or at a distance to facilitate cargo traffic; technical matters, in connection with the effect of the winds or how to channel water to prevent the material borne by mountain streams from clogging the port; strategy, around the integration of the port in the road network that connected the enclave to its hinterland and whether its defence would be more effective from the east or the west; and economy and logistics, including the cost/time factor and the possibility of centralising the postal service for the entire Mediterranean at Finale. The option defended by those who favoured Varigotti, «Il Vacallo» among them, received the support of governors and ambassadors, who played a decisive role in its selection, based on the site’s lower cost and greater strategic value, both commercial and military. The proposal concurred fully with «Il Vacallo’s» design, the 1616 date attributed to which may need to be revised, for reports and drawings are known to have been submitted to the Council of State in 1614: «the papers and drawings proposing that the port should be built at Varigotti have been delivered». Other arguments around its materialisation, similar in terms to the engineers’ debate and equally interesting but in the Council of State, ended affirmatively, with the king’s approval of construction42. The idea, then, was at least defined, although the design may have been the result of variations introduced in subsequent years, each time the project was revisited.

Defence and Alliance. Projects blocked in the Second half of the seventeenth century Inasmuch as these works were a direct threat to the republic’s economic interests, not to mention its sovereignty, the impact of their announcement on the relations between Spain and Genoa can be readily surmised. For Genoa, the project would constitute an irreparable loss, for the taxes levied by the Genovese on the goods carried by the vessels berthing in their ports would be collected at Finale43. The harm that building the port would have inflicted on the Genovese economy can be quantified. One of the new con-

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struction initiatives sponsored in 1644 by Milanese Governor, the Marquis of Caracena, mentioned that the cost of the works, approximately 500 000 ducats, would be offset by the profits from the salt trade which would, moreover, drive the growth of a large urban centre. By then the aim of the works had changed: reports clearly showing that the port at Cabrazoppa was apt for commercial but less so for military use had tilted the scales toward Varigotti. Nonetheless, two considerations ultimately favoured the Cabrazoppa option: the complex inland connection from Varigotti to the town of Finale and the technical difficulties involved in dredging its port, according to a study commissioned by the Milanese authority in 1634 from Giulio Martelli, engineer who had participated in dredging Barcelona port.

In 1642 the defensive problems were solved with a sea-side fortification built from a plan view drawn by Prestino, «engineer from the state of Milan who had designed the fortifications for Finale in times of the Marquis of Leganés»44. Prestino’s services had been engaged by the Genovese ambassador to Milan, because «as the site is ill-suited to fortifications, that defect must be made up for with ingenuity as far as possible»45.

The construction of San Giovanni fort in the town and the reinforcement of Castel Franco and Castel Gavone forts supplemented the new structure, to ensure defence on land and at sea. With the port, the governor wrote in a clear reference to territorial strategy, «Y.M.’s reigns will be united to one another and indisputably establish your royal power at sea...»46. This strategy, while sound from the military and commercial standpoints, was scantly realistic, for the cost would have been barely affordable and the threat its construction would have constituted for the republic would have led to revolt at a time of major conflicts. This revealed, yet again, that the strategy of territorial intervention devised by Milan ran up not only against financial considerations, but also the political and diplomatic management of Genovese affairs, blocking project materialisation.

The project for Finale port submitted by Bernabé de Gaínza Allafor in 1672 was the Crown’s last known seventeenth century attempt for which drawings have survived47. Despite its historical interest, this project has received scant attention and little is known about the circumstances surrounding its formulation or its author, other than that he was Lodger for His Majesty’s House and Court and Second Mate to the naval branch of the War Secretariat. The records also show that he produced some fine cartographic work at mid-century in Spanish cities bordering Portugal48. His design retrieved the Varigotti option in a project clearly authored by someone well versed in the principles of military engineering. Those skills are visible in the decision to build a bastion housing a citadel on the cliff and a breakwater to open one of the mouths of the port, as well as in the use of docks, one to curb the damage caused by the mouth of the river and another to protect the port. His design solved many of the problems that were left unaddressed in his predecessors’ and are present in his joint plan view and profile, where he also depicted the roads that connect to the west and the altitudes of the mountains relative to firing and defence angles. This characteristically military drawing does not neglect the surrounding area, an especially important consideration in a project which, despite its merits, never materialised. It closed a cycle of feverish design activity that remained fruitless because a series of economic, military and diplomatic factors interfered with the

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FIG. 9 Recinto del Castel Franco alla Marina, at Finale Ligur, ca. 1642. 505 x 666 mm. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 09, 004.

Castel Gavone y Bechignolo (Finale), ca. 1642. 424 x 576 mm. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 06, 024.

FIG. 10

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BERNABÉ DE GAÍNZA ALLAFOR. Planta y perfil de la obra que se podía hacer en el puerto de Finale para ponerle en defensa, 1672. 431 x 582 mm. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 05, 120.

FIG. 11

Crown’s intentions for western Liguria. Today those factors constitute the key for interpreting the respective projects.

POLITICAL ACTION IN DEFENCE OF THE PROJECTS: «REPUTATION AND SECURITY»

In 1644, the Marquis of Caracena, Governor of Milan, drafted a proposal for building a port at Finale in which he included a very realistic description of the Crown’s situation: financial difficulties and their impact on territorial organisation; the threat from France, associated with the growing hostility on the part of its ally, Genoa; and as a result, its diminished reputation which from the first quarter century played an active role in driving or curbing the Crown’s initiatives in matters of defence: «For the Republic to want to stand on the same footing as the Spanish Crown» read a text on the relations between the two allies in 1649 «is insane and foolish and may set a bad example for other Italian princes; hence, such a most inappropriate policy should be abandoned»49. As the ambassador to Genoa told the king in 1634 in connection with a conflict around the Genovese refusal to hail Spanish vessels from their ports, Spain had either to «let them know who

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Schizzo con piano di sbarco e invasione del Finale da parte delle truppe Franco- Sabaude, (after 1650). Archivio di Stato di Genova. Racolta Cartografica Senarega, Collegio Diversorum, Mss. 89.

FIG. 12

is in command» or suffer a loss of «reputation, respect and esteem» that would have severe consequences for other imperial affairs which the king himself should calibrate. He urged the monarch to show («in the perfect language used by Spanish diplomacy in Genoa») that «with no need to unsheathe the sword, Y.Mg. has the power to destroy» the republic50.

The text at issue referred directly to the need for a port, informing Philip IV in an attempt to further its construction that «Your Magesty cannot reputedly and safely wage the war with France without a port with inhabitants and means to maintain the navy in Liguria», so that «Finale port indisputably means health and safety for Italy and justified and certain punishment for Genoa»51. This question had driven the project as early as 1614, when the reports described how «every time that Your Magesty’s soldiers board or land at Baya de Saona, the Crown has such a poor reputation that the Genovese abuse of its power...». Nonetheless, in time the project would prove to be a two-edged sword, for initiating works that could not be completed for financial shortfalls could also jeopardise the Crown’s reputation. As the Knight Commander of Leon noted: «Y.Mg. has many castles, ports and docks begun but unfinished for want of wherewithal and many things that must be attended to... when such works are started the costs are under-reckoned and then the expense doubles and cannot be met, so they stand incomplete, shaming their owners...»52. Reputation was a concern that recurred in all the seventeenth cen-

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Anonymous. Plan de la ville et des fortifications de Final, ca. 1680. Archives Dèpartamentales des Yvelines-France.

Cartes et Plans, Italien, A 1596.

FIG. 13

JOSEP CHAFFRION. La Liguria Stato della Repubblica di Genova con altri stati adiacenti. Dedicata all’impareggiabile virtù e merito dell’Eminentissimo e Reverendissimo Principe il Signor Cardinale Gio Batta Spinola, detto S. Cesareo, 1679.

Printed by Domenico de Rossi, Rome, 1697. 435 x 1035 mm. Archivio di Stato di Genova. Mappe e tipi della Repubblica di Genova, Seg. 41.

FIG. 14

tury attempts to resume the Finale project. The Governor of Milan himself alluded to it in his 1644 project, when he claimed to be certain that construction of the port alone would «repair all the problems and curb Genovese discourtesy and excess most effectively and with that they will be wholly repressed and even so mortified that they will not dare even imagine what they presently attempt...»: an argument that combined the strategy of exerting political pressure by building the port with the notion of reputation.

The notion acquired symbolic and ceremonial significance on the occasion of Mariana de Austria’s passing through Finale in 1649 on her voyage to Madrid to marry Philip IV, travelling the Spanish Road southwestward rather northeastward. The event was planned as an exhibition of the Crown’s reputation on the ground of its control over its territories. When the queen reached the port to cross the mountain to the town along the road connecting Milan and Finale, she was saluted with rounds of artillery fired by squadrons from the Crown’s castles and galleys. This propagandistic display, intended

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Mapa del camino realizado por Gaspare Beretta en 1666 desde Finale hasta Alessandria (published in 1677).

444 x 630 mm. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 60, 014.

FIG. 15

for all of Europe, focused on a single idea: that possession and control of this port and the roads that connected it to Milan were instrumental to holding the empire together.

«A port with such a gathering as this will scantly be found in the Annals» noted the chronicler of the event «for the positions of the persons gathered there»53. A similar situation gave rise to a diplomatic incident between Spain and Genoa in 1666, on the occasion of Empress María Teresa de Austria’s landing at Finale on her voyage from the court at Madrid to Vienna, as the wife of Leopold I54. This was interpreted by Genoa, according to the ambassador’s report, as an offence: «This Republic is reacting with apprehension to the published reports that the Empress will not stop here and will land at Finale; and that, if true, will alter public spirits greatly, in the belief that it is to deny some expected favour»55. Genoa went so far as to entertain the idea of not providing Spain with the services needed for this voyage from the ports on the Ligurian coast, in an event charged with symbolism and international repercussions. The visit left its mark on this region in the form of a permanent arch of triumph that presided the entry to the port, creating an aura of domination reproduced in ink and watercolour by an anonymous author in the second half of the seventeenth century. This clearly celebratory and propagandistic view of the port and its defensive systems from the sea depicted three elements of the projects for the port on which debates had focused: the town, Cabrazoppa and the inland fortifications.

The empress’s voyage from Finale to Vienna through Milan also prompted a territorial intervention in which political arguments associated both with reputation and

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strategies for geographic control came into play. The works in question consisted in building part of the stradone reale56 that the Governor of Milan commissioned from military engineer Gaspare Beretta, with the royal voyage as justification. Beretta had worked in Milan with Prestino and had participated in a design to enlarge Finale port in 1661 (whose unsuccessful resumption in 1670 has recently been documented)57 . The design for the new section of paved road, which ran along the existing pathway from Alessandria to Finale, is relevant here because, conceptually speaking, it formed part of the military strategy deployed by the Crown in Europe. Moreover, it gave rise to sizeable volumes of cartographic work associated with the orFIG. 16 GASPARE BERETTA. Abbozzo della pianta dell’abitato di ganisation of a political domain in Finale, 1661. 810 x 1110 mm. Archivio di Stato di Genova. Carwhich illustrations played an essentografia miscellanea, Marchesato del Finale, Ovada e Campofreddo, 23. tial role. These maps and their associated texts conveyed a single message about how power is wielded over the land: in this case by establishing boundaries. Understood as limits of States’ territorial dominion, the political, military and diplomatic scenario prevailing at the time called for utmost precision in their definition and for that definition to be visible.

Beretta himself, as military engineer, revised the Savona and Vado forts at the request of the republic58 while working for the Crown on its plan for territorial organisation.

In a similar vein, Josep Cafrión, Spanish military engineer engaged by the Governor of Milan, formulated the first map of the Genovese coast in 1684-85, while he was also drafting his Plantas de las fortificaciones de las Ciudades, Plazas y Castillos del Estado de Milán (s.n. 1687) and shortly before he published his Escuela de Palas o Curso mathematico, (Milan: M.A. Pandulfo Malatesta, 1693). According to M. Quaini, precedents for his cartographic endeavour may be found in the work performed by military engineers, cartographers and geographers serving the state of Milan who drew from their knowledge of the Ligurian coast to cooperate with the Republic’s engineers, establishing a culture of contacts and cross-influences that merits further study. Nonetheless, as noted above, sight should not be lost in this discussion of the tension between diplomatic endeavour and military strategy that constitutes the key to understanding the fate of projects conditioned by a constant need to strike a balance between strategy and defence.

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NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

UNED. Calle Senda del Rey, n. 7, 28040 Madrid. cgomez@geo.uned.es Expression used by Carlo Doria Carretto, Duke of Tursi and Spanish ambassador to Genoa in a letter to Philip III. AGS, EST, LEG, 3592, 62.

For an updated vision of this area, see PACINI, 2013, pp. 138-154. On the Spanish road: PARKER, 2000.

Quoted by PACINI, 2005, pp. 21-44.

RIBOT, 1989, pp. 349-363.

«Report that engineer Giorgio Palearo Fratino provided with the design for the port and castle for Finale included in this dispatch», «De Milán a 14 de junio de 1571». AGS, EST, 1232, 193. Partially reproduced in VIGANÒ, 2004, pp. 91-94 and 120.

AEDO Y GALLART, 1635, p. 24.

RUIZ DE LA LAGUNA, 1633, p. 2bis and pp. 47-53. See also Papeles varios reinados de Felipe II y Felipe IV, BNM, MSS. 9438, pp.

26v-27v.

CALCAGNO, 2010; CALCAGNO, 2011; CALCAGNO, 2014, pp. 212-231.

For a good overview of the subject, including the garrisons, see VIGANÒ, 2007, pp. 79-117.

PACINI, 2005, pp. 21-44. RIZZO, 1992, pp. 315-348.

Quoted by PACINI, 2005, p. 30. In A. Pacini’s opinion, the author of this report may have been Francisco de Ugarte, secretary to Ambassador Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, who was called to the Court in 1571.

PACINI, 2005, p. 30.

HERRERO SÁNCHEZ, 2005, pp. 9-20 and 115-152. HERRERO SÁNCHEZ, 2004, pp. 528-562.

ASSERETO, G., 2007, p. 162.

Quoted by ASSERETO, 2007, p. 162.

RAPETTI, 1998 as quoted in CALCAGNO, 2012, p. 81.

PACINI, A. 2003, pp. 325-388 and pp. 341-342.

For examples related to the city’s castle and fortification, see: AGS, EST, LEG, 3617,21 and AGS, EST, LEG, 1426, 15.

In 1571 Spanish troops took the marquisate which, in addition to the port, included Finale Pía and Finalborgo. Political and administrative control was acquired and the first governor of Milan, Pedro de Toledo, was appointed in 1602. The marquisate would be judicially and administratively independent and dependent upon Milan for military and financial affairs. The process culminated with the total transfer of the territory to the Crown by the Empire in 1619. In 1630 the Emperor granted Finale Port to Philip IV under a 1639 privilege. EDELMAYER, 1994, pp. 43-61. Other essential reading: CALCAGNO, 2009. CALCAGNO, 2011. CANO DE GARDOQUI GARCÍA, 1995.

CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1981, pp. 255-269; CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1998, pp. 42-46.

GABRIO BUSCA, Descritione delle fortezze di frontiera dello Stato di Milano (1602). The manuscript, kept at the Pavia Civic Library, was partially published in G. LIVA, «Note sulla cartografia del territorio dello Stato di Milano in età spagnola nel XVI secolo», in BORTOLOTTI et al., 1999, pp. 26-27. Later, in the second half of the seventeenth century, Gaspare Beretta would make another attempt to implement the project, including a series of inter-connected strongholds. See DAMERI, 2013, pp. 98109.

AGS, EST, LEG, 1436, 235. On the defensive war: CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1998, pp. 61-64.

AGS, EST, LEG, 3598, 6.

The king’s request was dated August 1643. AGS, EST, LEG, 3598, 286.

Heliche’s Atlas contained four types of illustrations: plan views of cities; unengaged forts and defensive enclaves; chorographies showing overviews; and depictions of battles and sites. Plantas de diferentes plazas…, in SÁNCHEZ RUBIO et al. (eds.), 2004.

According to one source, as early as 1566 Philip II had sent engineer Antonio Carmona to explore the possibility of building a port at Varigotti or Caprazoppa, near Finale. PEANO CAVASOLA, «…Una sferza con cui percoterci a lor piacere». Finale fra Genova e Madrid, in SEVERAL AUTHORS, 2007, pp. 25-77 and 69-70. On the occupation of the marquisate and the conflict with the Empire: EDELMAYER, 1994, pp. 43-61.

Quoted by VIGANO, 2004, pp. 91-92.

By then Giorgio Palearo Fratino had worked on rebuilding the castle at Finale. In 1571, after Castel Gavone was taken, he visited the area on commission by the Duke of Alburquerque at the king’s urging to assess the state of the port and the possibility of protecting it with a fort and to calculate the number of galleys it could accommodate. The report, custodied at the Simancas Archives (AGS, EST, LEG, 1232), is reproduced in VIGANÒ, 2004, pp. 91-94. See also pp. 120-121 and notes 273 and 274.

FIOR, 1998 and FIOR et al., 2003.

AGS, EST, LEG, 1433, 50.

The question was whether to choose Cabrazoppa, which was closer to the town of Finale, or Varigotti, somewhat more distant and close to the marina. BRUNA, 1993.

AGS, EST, LEG, 1932, 175. This strategy was deployed frequently. In 1609, for instance, the Council of State instructed the ambassador to «let (the Genovese) know» that «Spain could build a port in Finale» in response to a possible GenoveseFrench alliance.

Quoted by CALCAGNO, 2011, p. 36.

AGS, EST, LEG, 1433, 49.

The allusion to the Earl of Fuentes referred here to his supervision as a member of the Council of State, to which he was appointed in 1598. On the derailment of the proposal: AGS, EST, LEG, 1932, 399 and 1434,195.

In 1614 the Council of State advised against its construction. GASPARINI, 1958. AGS, EST, LEG, 1436, 234.

FORTI, 1992, pp. 9-12; CERINO BADONE, 2012, pp. 261-182.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

39. «…haverà il suddetto porto di giro circa 3800 palmi, e però capace di cento galere, navigli grossi et d``ogni sorte di legni».

AGS, Estado, Milán y Saboya, 1910. UGO, 1993.

40. «...because from this follows», argued Hinojosa, «safe trade, which it has not... and would save Y.Mg. from asking the Genovese

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

for permission every day, for today they are friends and tomorrow they may not be, depending on the course of events in Italy... and the salt that enriches the Genovese and supplies Lombardy, brought to Finale and transported from there would bring considerable earnings.» AGS, EST, LEG, 1436, 236.

RUIZ DE LA LAGUNA, 1633, pp. 37-50.

UGO, 1993, p. 45. AGS, EST, LEG, 1436, 229, 233 and 235.

AGS, EST, LEG, 1437, 41 and LEG, 1933, 309 and 310.

AGS, EST, LEG, 3598, 5.

AGS, EST, LEG, 3598, 6. CALCAGNO, 2011, p. 99.

AGS, EST, LEG, 3607, 49.

AGS, EST, LEG, 3640, 84.

Corographia y descripción del territorio de la Plaza de Badaxoz y fronteras del Reyno de Portugal confinantes a ella, in SÁNCHEZ RUBIO et al. (eds.), 2003.

Quoted by HERRERO SÁNCHEZ, 2005, p. 136.

AGS, EST, LEG, 3592, 62 and 3594, 19.

Compare to CALCAGNO, 2011, p. 32. On this occasion it was Francisco de Melo, ambassador to Genoa who raised the proposal.

GASPARINI, 1958 and AGS, EST, LEG, 1436, 234.

MASCAREÑAS, 1650.

BERTOLLI, 1951, pp. 20-24.

AGS, EST, LEG, 3636, 107, 1.

TESTA, 2002.

Nor would the projects proposed in 1678, 1680 or 1684 materialise. CALCAGNO, 2011, p, 40. On G. Beretta: VIGANÒ, 2013; COLMUTO ZANELLA and RONCAI, 1994, pp. 63-111; TESTA, 2002 and SEVERAL AUTHORS, 2007, pp. 151-166.

QUAINI, 1984, pp. 233; BELY, 2008, pp. 35-51.

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Back to Contents

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9 City, War and Drawing in the Sixteenth Century: from Tripoli to the Moroccan Atlantic ANTONIO BRAVO NIETO1 Universidad de Tetuán y Centro UNED Melilla SERGIO RAMÍREZ GONZÁLEZ2 Universidad de Málaga y Centro UNED Málaga Translation: BÁRBARA RUIZ-BEJARANO

ABSTRACT

This paper aims at highlighting the importance of drawing as a reflection of a historical period (the sixteenth century) where the Spanish Monarchy exercised a strategic control on North African coasts and cities. The effort deployed in cities such as Melilla, Oran, Merz el-Kebir, Algiers, Bizerte, Bejaia, Bona or Tripoli was enormous, and the warlike actions were represented in different ways to facilitate the wide circulation of such events.

This text tries to analyze a significant part of the set of images created with particular emphasis on military architecture and the urban areas. From this, we learnt that those plans, engravings, tapestries and paintings were used as graphic documents that complemented and enriched the literary text, in the drafting of history, while offering recreations that range from the reliable, the falsified and the imaginary.

KEYWORDS

Spanish monarchy, north Africa, sixteenth century, drawing, fortifications, siege, city, bulwark.

221

INTRODUCTION

The Spanish Monarchy always considered the North African territory as a priority area of interest. From the late fifteenth century and during the sixteenth century, Spanish monarchs considered North African coasts, and specially, cities, as a key location for the defence of Spain and Europe. This strategic role was going to be supported in the first stage by the key figures of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic Kings, although it would be Charles I and his son, Philip II, who exercised a tighter control of the Mediterranean to face the Ottoman power and the corsairs.

The Spanish armies and navies hoped to extend their domain over cities and coastal areas, located between Tripoli, on the eastern Mediterranean, and Cape Ghir, on the Moroccan Atlantic. One of the consequences of this dominion was an interesting corpus of images, formulated as engravings, drawings, frescos, or even tapestries. Studying these representations can help provide a global idea of this enterprise3; an approach from the reflection of them on the fortifications and war hostilities, offers an interesting iconographic aspect which usually goes unnoticed.

THE CATHOLIC KINGS AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NORTH AFRICAN CYCLE

Medieval Portuguese Representations about the Conquests on the Moroccan Coast There is awareness, as mentioned, that the Catholic Kings promoted the first Spanish actions on North African soil. By then, Portugal had already started its own settling on the continent, through events that were magnificently depicted in the series of Flemish tapestries of Pastrana Collegiate Church. These tapestries portray the Portuguese activities in Ksar es-Seghir in 1458, Tangier in 1471 and Asilah in 1471.

In all of them, the medieval and gothic character of the representations is evident, with a strong connection to the Flemish aesthetic. Thoroughness is one of their characteristics, as it depicts contemporary weapons, artillery and fighting methods in great detail. There is, however, a peculiar representation of space and cities, which indicates a lack of perspective, giving a strong artificial character.

In the tapestry The landing at Asilah, the perception of places is absolutely simulated, which contrasts with the deal of information and authenticity depicted in the warfare implements of the period. However, the representation of the city becomes arbitrary to the point that it can be observed that the walls are similar to the medieval walls of any other European city. They show machicolations, battlements, gothic windows, and even church bell towers forcibly transformed into minarets.

The tapestry The siege of Asilah presents a similar composition, highlighting the idea of a besieged city, totally misrepresented, although notable references to assault systems can be found. In the last tapestry in the series, The attack on Asilah, the narrative rhythm is concluded, where the dynamism of the army takes over the main lines of the composition.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 1

Scene corresponding to the city and port of the tapestry The Conquest of Tangier, Parish Church Museum of Pas-

trana.

On the other hand, the tapestry The conquest of Tangier repeats the same ideas of the medieval city, Christian in form, and at the same time we find certain realism in the disposition of the port, with elements recalling the actual one. Regarding the series of tapestries dedicated to the conquest of Ksar es-Seghir, they do not show depictions of relevant urban structures.

The Nearest North African Coast: Melilla, Cazaza and VĂŠlez de la Gomera As mentioned before, the late fifteenth century represents the moment where a new period begins, where the determination of the Catholic Kings is expressed both in the first attempt to occupy the Island of Djerba and the city of Melilla, in 14974.

In this period, representation models were strongly influenced by Flemish aesthetics, as observed in the Pastrana tapestries, and also in the relief sculptures in the lower choir of Toledo Cathedral, depicting Granadan city sieges.

The first attempt to conquer Djerba ended in a defeat (which would not be the last), although in the same year, 1497, Melilla was occupied. However, the procedure used for this operation, based primarily in the organization of the enterprise in a bloodless manner, for the city was abandoned, is probably the reason why we have no drawings or representations of the events, far from conquests of a heroic nature. It would not be

CITY, WAR AND DRAWING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY: FROM TRIPOLI TO THE MOROCCAN ATLANTIC

223

FIG. 2 The conquest of Melilla, according to BARRANTES MALDONADO,

in Las Ilustraciones de la Casa de Niebla, 1540.

Reproduced by Rafael Fernández de Castro, 1945.

until 1540 when Pedro Barrantes Maldonado included a drawing in the framework of an illuminated manuscript destined to glorify the deeds of the Duke of Medina Sidonia5.

The truth is that it was a sketch of great simplicity, although it gives an idea of a credible Islamic city, including the area where the fleet landed. The image is quite correct, with indication of the walls and the gates to the city. In this work we can already find already the elements that will later appear in these kinds of representations: the fleet (with several different kinds of ships), the army (infantry and cavalry) and the city to be occupied.

There is no drawing of the conquest of Cazaza (Gassasa) in 1505 (a castle near Melilla, a possession of the ducal house of Medina Sidonia until 1532), nor of the conquest of Merz el-Kebir the following year (1506-1708 and 1732-1792) or that of the Peñon de Vélez de la Gomera (Badis) by Pedro Navarro in 1508 (possession of Spain until 1522 and later reconquered in 1564 until today).

The Expansion towards the East: Oran, Bejaia, Peñon de Algiers and Tripoli It was not until the 27th May 1509 that Cardinal Cisneros would carry out the conquest of Oran (Wahran), together with Merz el-Kebir, that a notable representation of such a deed is found6.

Juan de Borgoña is the creator of this painting, where the figure of Cardinal Cisneros, as the promoter and conductor of the deed, and where medieval models were still quite present. The narrative aspect is to be highlighted; the meticulousness of the details cannot lead us to ignore the inaccuracy of the representation of the city. Oran is presented as a city full of Christian medieval architecture, even when, in some cases, a tower might simulate a minaret of rough manufacture. However, the general representation has a

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 3

JUAN DE BORGOÑA.

Scene of The landing at Oran. Mozarabic Chapel of Toledo Cathedral.

greater accuracy, for it presents several fortifications, especially those on the right side, which could match the castle of Rosalcazar. Without underestimating the sloping structure, crowned by a higher ground where the kasbah was located, or the existence of the two buildings with their respective gates, higher and lower, Juan de Borgoña couldn’t rely on any first-hand graphic material to represent the city of Oran, although he did have a recollection of the deeds and some descriptions of the city.

1510 was an important year for the African expansionist policy. As a matter of fact, on January 6th, engineer and soldier Pedro Navarro retakes the city of Bejaia7 (Bejaïa or Biyaya), which remained under Spanish control until 1555. We have knowledge of an engraving of the city which, even mentioning the conquest by King Ferdinand, gives evidence of the state of the city in 1551, when the Emperor’s engineers had already fortified

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FIG. 4 The siege of Bejaia, 1551, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département Cartes et Plans, GE DD-2987 (8024).

the place, and the Spanish defences are visible, which indicates a precise knowledge of the compound.

Bejaia, in this drawing, consisted of a medina, surrounded by Islamic walls, presided by a Kasbah with ramparts, and embracing between them the gate to the sea, which led to the port. Just outside this compound, there was a bigger one, with another gate to the sea, tracks, and the Spanish fortress, located on the highest place inside it. The gates, roads, and communications between the different compounds are perfectly depicted. Regarding the siege of the city, it can be considered anachronistic, because many of the buildings in the drawing did not exist then. The warfare apparatus is focused particularly on the fleet, from which the siege begins, and on the ground troops surrounding the city.

The same year, on April 24th, the Peñon of Algiers (Al-Yaza’ir) was conquered, and remained under Spanish control until 1529. The Peñon is a small headland which became an outlook to control the commercial and military traffic of the city. On the Peñon, the Spanish built a small garrison, with a reduced number of troops. On the other hand, on July 25th 1510, Tripoli ( ar bulus al-Garb) was occupied, and remained in Christian hands until 1551.

And finally, as a dramatic conclusion of 1510, on August 29th a new disaster occurred in the Djerba, dramatized in a poem by Garcilaso de la Vega: Oh, crying country, and how you turn your eyes to Djerba, sighing! [...]

The sand was burning, the sun was scorching people fell, half dead [...]

In all these conquests, occupations and landings there was not a programme or specific instructions to represent the historical deeds as they took place. The case of Oran was the only one that followed the idea of commemorating and giving prestige to the deed’s author, Cardinal Cisneros. But the same pattern is not found in the other events, carried out under the patronage of Isabella or Ferdinand, the Catholic Kings. There were no «drawing chroniclers» to perpetuate through images all the efforts deployed.

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EMPEROR CHARLES: THE NORTH OF AFRICA IN HIS IMAGE

The beginning of the Emperor’s reign finds him occupied with several affairs other than the North African coasts, and will not find new remarkable military deeds until the beginning of the thirties in that century. It is true that an unfortunate event took place in the Kerkennah Islands, and that in 1517 and 1519 both Francisco de la Vega and Hugo of Moncada were defeated in Algiers.

In 1529, an event represented a warning sign about the power of the Ottoman Empire and their expansive policy towards Europe and the Mediterranean. An important event, such as the siege of Vienna by the Turks, was accompanied, within the scope we are dealing with, by the loss of Peñon of Algiers, and the city freed itself from the control or tutelage exerted by Spain.

The Cities of Bizerte and Mahdia In 1531 Honaine (Honaine) is occupied, until 1534, and in 1535 Bona (Annaba) will fall to Spain until 1541, as well as Bizerte (Banzart).

There is an engraving of Bizerte representing the combined attack on the city of Andrea Doria’s navy and a squadron of 1.000 foot soldiers. The drawing depicts the landing in front of Chavalabiat Tower and the eastern part of the city, on November 4th. The representation is succinct in details, except for the fortress, which crowns the city, and shows bastioned towers and a poorly defined wall. In the same year, 1535, Mahdia8 (also called Africa) is occupied, and in this case there is a cartographic image drawn years later by Franz Hogenberg in Civitatis Orbis Terrarum.

The engraving shows many details, although it presents some geographical misrepresentations. The peninsula on which the city lies is longer and it shows several incorrect details. However, the fortified perimeter is well represented, as well as the crowded rows of houses in the city, within the walls. The attack of the navy occurs both from the west and the east, and, above all, the different elements and buildings for the siege are highlighted: parallel trenches, ditches and approach covers which indicates the siege was rigorous, including Christian campaign artillery shooting from protecting cover.

FIG. 5 PAOLO FORLANI. Bizerte,

a fortress on the Barbary coast. In Descrittione dell’ Africa, Venice, 1562, fol. 81.

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FIG. 6

FRANZ HOGENBERG

and G. BRAUN. Mahdia or Africa. In Civitatis Orbis Terrarum, 1572 -1618. ACOML. Historical

engravings.

The Conquest of La Goulette and Tunis: the Glorification of the Emperor The conquest of La Goulette (Halq al Wadi) and Tunis (Tunis) in 1535 was, without doubt, one of the most reproduced and celebrated military events of the Emperor, to the extent that there are abundant representations intended to glorify the monarch, which is the reason for their obvious symbolic nature.

One of the most significant representations is the one developed in the series of twelve tapestries on the conquest of Tunis, manufactured in Brussels between 1548 and 1554.

The manufacturer is Willem de Pannemaker on a cartoon drawn by Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen and Pieter Coecke van Aelst. Vermeyen witnesses the development of the military events and took sketches of everything he observed on the field. On the other hand, the tapestries have explanatory texts attributed to Alonso de Santa Cruz, the captions of which accompany the images, emphasising the propaganda role of the set.

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Scene of tapestry IV by WILLEM DE PANNEMAKER on a cartoon by JAN CORNELISZ VERMEYEN (Brussels, 1546-1554). Royal Palace, Madrid.

FIG. 7

Currently, ten of the twelve original tapestries (VIII and XI are missing) and ten of the twelve cartoons are extant (I and IX are missing), besides trustworthy copies that were made during the eighteenth century, so the set can be perfectly described9. On the other hand, this collection of tapestries has been the object of remarkable studies and analyses from varied perspectives and approaches10. We will focus our research on those aspects expressly detailing the elements of the city and the fortification.

The descriptive and narrative interest of the set explains why tapestry I is actually a map presented as an inverted image, with the south at the top and the north at the bottom, the western Mediterranean, as a sea crowded with Spanish ship, from the Atlantic to Italy, with the city of Tunis as a great regional capital.

On the other hand, while in nº II the gathering of troops in Barcelona, led by the Emperor himself, can be seen, nº III represents his landing at La Goulette, on June 16th 1535, together with his court and 12.000 foot soldiers. Curiously, this landing took place on the ruins of the old city of Carthage, which was occupied by humble shacks, and which will appear in several of the tapestries as a silent witness of the deeds. In the background, on the left, Tunis can be seen with its walled enclosure, as well as some neighbourhoods outside the walls11. In the mid-distance, the Ottoman fortress of La Goulette can be seen, as a square tower, built by Sinan the Jew and heavily armed. Outside the fortress we can see other defences, such as the Tower of the Salt and the Tower of the Water, both well equipped.

Tapestry IV revolves around the battle before the conquest of La Goulette. In the foreground, we can see some secondary defences, such as the Tower of the Water, the lagoon between La Goulette and Tunis, Carles V’s infantry, Barbarossa’s cavalry, and the

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FIG. 8

Scene of a ditch with parapet in tapestry VI. The enemy leaving La Goulette.

Scene from Tapestry VII. WILLEM DE PANNEMAKER on a cartoon by JAN CORNELISZ VERMEYEN (Brussels, 1546-1554). Royal Palace, Madrid.

FIG. 9

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Scene from Tapestry XI, representing the fortress, the works set up for the attack and the canal.

FIG. 10

pike square, formed by new Spanish nationals. In the background, we can see the arrangement of the old Spanish Tercios, arrived from Italy.

Tapestry V represents the Turks leaving La Goulette. There is an essential element in the attacks of fortresses: the use of trenches and other assault weapons. The attacking army started the approaching manoeuvres for which they had to carry firewood and branches from the ships to the works. The omnipresent ruins of Carthage are also represented.

The conquest of La Goulette is represented in tapestry VII: the fortress defended by more than 400 pieces of artillery and 8.000 Turks is defeated from the land, by eleven cannons, and from the sea, by nine galleys. Finally, the fortress is taken because part of a wall fell down. In this tapestry we can also see how the system formed by Tunis and its natural port worked. Between the city and the open sea there is a shallow lagoon, almost entirely closed by a sand strip, with a channel to the open sea. La Goulette fortress was located at this spot, as a control point for the only exit. Communications started in Tunis and there was a covered track, formed by vaults and defensive walls, which arrived to the shore of the lagoon, and protected those circulating or trading by a cover from any enemy.

From the lagoon, the transport was by boat to the sand strip, where a new defence system controlled the traffic from the canal to the open sea. As can be appreciated, La Goulette really controlled the main communication system of the capital, and therefore its economy and defence.

The Emperor’s march on Tunis is represented on tapestry VIII, whereas nº IX presents the well-known Battle of the Wells of Tunis. In tapestry X we find the Plundering of Tunis and the liberation of 20.000 Christian slaves, who were held prisoner in the Alcazaba, while in XI we can see the return of the army to the inlet after the city had been occupied.

This latest is quite interesting because it shows the state of all the siege fortifications built around La Goulette, as well as the defences set up by the Turks. Ditches, fences, covered tracks, artillery settlements and other mechanisms, among which we have to highlight the artefacts on the canal.

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Finally, in Tapestry XII, the Emperor returns to La Goulette, orders its fortifications, and entrusts the enclave t to Bernardino de Mendoza, with a guard of 1.000 Spanish, while placing in Tunis a vassal king. In this tapestry, we can see Vermeyen sketching, representing the city, its walls and gates with great detail.

Undoubtedly, Vermeyen’s works manage to gather one of the most interesting sets on one of the North African conquests, where the exaltation of the Spanish Monarchy and the Emperor appear well balanced with a detailed visual account of the deeds and a description of all the details.

Another remarkable series on the subject of the Conquest of Tunis are the paintings of the tower of the Queen’s Hairdresser, in the Alhambra of Granada12. In this case, eight frescoes are preserved with the following topics: 1º Gathering of the imperial fleet in Cagliari, 2º Navigation of the fleet, 3º The Navy attacks La Goulette, 4º The Fleet approaches La Goulette, 5º Conquest of Tunis, 6º Boarding of the fleet, 7º The fleet arrives in Sicily and Triumphant entrance in Trapani. The narrative aspect of the set is easily noticed. For our analyses, frescoes nº 4 and 5 are the most interesting. The first one focuses on the fleet; geography is used as a scenographic perspective, and the urban and fortification details are not accurate. Nº 5, the fleet is in front of La Goulette, presenting the order of the fleet, the fortress and the lagoon, with Tunis in the background. A wise use of colours can be perceived in order to achieve a contrast between different elements: blue sea, red land, and orange Tunis. On the other hand, it offers scarce description, although we can see some ditches and other fortification works.

The paintings were commissioned by Charles V, following his secretary’s advice13 and the set is a work by Alejandro Mayner and Giulio d’Aquili, although it seems the latter was mainly dedicated to the grotesque in the scenes. Recently restored, the models for the paintings were obtained from Vermeyen’s works, although we can see evident differences that show their own distinctive personality. This is perceived particularly in the composition of the set, and in the interest of the geographical setting14, as well as in the way chosen to reflect individual elements such as the landscape background, the city of Tunis, the lagoon, La Goulette and the fleet, which creates a singular perspective effect.

Despite their transcendence, these were not, however, the single representations of the Conquest of La Goulette and Tunis15. Many of them are inspired in the drawings for the tapestries. In an image of the Conquest of La Goulette made by Hogenberg, this similitude is evident. All the elements of the attack appear together in this engraving, with the eastern and western fronts, including attacks from ship to ship, parallel trenches, ditches, artillery, saps, etc. Hogenberg makes other engravings on the subject; some of them follow Vermeyen’s work, while others present a freer composition. Such is the example of the landscape of Tunis, where a reference to the year 1535 is made, although in a forced manner, for the fights are secondary and theatrical, and the profile of the city is highlighted, above the rest of the composition.

There are other representations16 which deform, to a greater or lesser extent, the descriptive discourse of the images. In some cases17 they help to build a context for the geographical framework of the events, at the expense of the fortification and assault elements, which appear oversimplified. In other cases, the figure of the Emperor is emphasized, within an imaginary urban framework, where the violence of the combat is

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FIG. 11

FRANS HOGENBERG.

Conquest of La Goulette fortress during the Battle of Tunis. Source: “Empire of the Sea” by

Roger Crowley.

stressed, as in the calcographic engraving VII, drawn by Maarten van Heemskerck and engraved by Dirck Coornhert18. Tunis appears in one of the 12 prints of this series, created in 1555 for the glory of the Emperor19.

In this spirit Taddeo y Federico Zuccaro’s fresco, Paul III receives Charles V after the Battle of Tunis, dated 1562-1563, can be included. This painting is located in Palazzo Farnese de Caprarola, Italy, showing the Emperor, on his knees, telling the Pope about the great deed in Tunis. The work, relinquishing the descriptive restraints of the combats, focuses on the consequences of the deed, and on the power balance between the Empire and the Papacy.

The Representation of Defeat: Algiers Expedition Between 1539 and 1541 a new season of attacks and conquests takes place on the North African shores. The Spanish navy and army occupy the cities of Mahometa (la Mahometa), Sousa (Susa), Monastir (al-Munastir) and Kerkennah islands (Kerkennah).

In 1541, Charles I carries out a large scale action against a relevant corsair capital: Algiers. Spain had already had control of the small fortress on the Peñon, at the port, which was lost in 1529. The loss of control over the corsair city and the increasing Ottoman threat, set out what was called Algiers expedition, which was to end with a sour defeat20. The city was well fortified, but had scarce troops: about 800 Turks and 5.000

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FIG. 12

Algeri, 1541. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, GE DD-1140 (106RES).

Muslims and Spanish moriscos. The siege and attack on the city was planned, including the support of a galley fleet from the sea. However, the lack of heavy weaponry (siege artillery, tools for climbing the walls, etc) caused the attack to be delayed, and the bad weather conditions added to destroying the Emperor’s ambitions.

Although the event didn’t have a positive end, there are several representations of the attack, such as the one carried out by Antonio Salamanca21 and the engraving of the besieged city Algeri22.

This last engraving depicts the Spanish attempt to conquer Algiers, although it more explicitly shows the impregnable character of the city. The port is depicted, with the sea front covered by walls – which curiously present mannerist details in the ashlar stones –, and the artillery shooting; on the other hand, in the countryside, the Spanish army is portrayed, with their cannons and camp. There are noticeable errors in the representation of the fortresses on the sea front, which appear quite deformed, thus the function of representing reality gives way to the visual message of an impregnable city.

The last years of Charles I’s reign would see new operations, conquests and events.

Such are the ones at Monastir in 1550, Mahdía between 1550 and 1553 and, particularly, Tripoli, which is conquered by the Ottomans, proving that the Turk threat was more active than ever, and that all the efforts made to fortify the city had been in vain.

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FIG. 13

Tripoli, Città di Barbaria. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, GE DD-626 (66RES).

PHILIP II: THE NEW MEDITERRANEAN CESAR

Philip II will inherit most of the Mediterranean worries of his father, and his kingdom will be strongly conditioned by different events on the North African coast. The first of these events took place at Cape Ghir 23 (cap Ghir, 40 kilometres north of the Moroccan city of Agadir), where in 1556, the fleet led by Álvaro de Bazán prevented the supply of weapons to the sultan of Fes from two English ship. On this matter there is a fresco in the palace El Viso del Marqués24, quite damaged, which offers details of the fleet and disembarkment on the Moroccan coast, even though the urban or defence references are vague.

We will have to wait until 1560 to state a curious affair, the representation of a siege that actually never took place: that against Tripoli25. The engraving Citta di Barbaria shows an attack with 60 galleys and as many other ship. The image represents the siege of the city by Christian ships and represents its status with a detailed description of the fortifications built at the request of Spain during the first half of the century. It even includes the measurements of the walls, most of them of the Islamic type, with several Modern adaptations, such as an armed bulwark defending the port, and a quadrangular fort with pentagons, castello fato da cristiani. In addition, the walls have pentagonal frontal bulwarks acting as berms. The urban design of the city appears careful and detailed, showing some landmarks.

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FIG. 14

Disigno dell’Isola de Gerbi, 1560. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, GE DD-626 (65RES).

From Defeat to Glory: the Battle of Djerba and Peñon de Vélez de la Gomera In the same year of 1560 a new disaster occurs in Djerba, which leaves a macabre monument which engrosses a repertoire of Romantic images; that is, a tower allegedly formed by 5.000 skulls of Spanish soldiers dead in the battle, which apparently still was standing in 1848. In P. Forlani’s Atlas we find an interesting engraving of the event, Disigno dell’Isola de Gerbi26, where all the fortresses of the island are located, with a special focus on the bastioned castle built by the Spanish.

One of the main campaigns of Philip II in the Mediterranean was the occupation of the Peñon de Vélez de la Gomera in 156427, a carefully planned and successfully executed operation28. From that moment, the image of the Peñon was perpetuated as a graphic icon, remarkable because of the preservation of all its defensive structures until today. The monarch relied, for the occasion, on an exceptional painter, Antoon van den Wijngaerde29, who made two exceptional drawings of the event.

The first of them is a perspective taken from land, from one of the heights surrounding the peñon. This promontory appears in the centre of the image, as the objective of the composition, while the siege from land and sea can be perfectly appreciated, with the Spanish fleet as the protagonist. The fortifications described in this picture are part of those initially built by Pedro Navarro, to be added to those built by the Turks during 42 years. On the top of the peñon there are a tower and walled compounds, distributed on several terraces. There are also several platforms for cannons, an enclosure with turrets and walls adapted to the terrain, which made use of the extreme irregularity of the rock.

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FIG. 15 ANTON VAN DEN WYNGAERDE. Siege and conquest of the Peñon de Vélez de la Gomera, 1564, Österreichische Nationalbibliotek, Vienna, Cat. ÖB.57.

FIG. 16 ANTON VAN DEN WYNGAERDE. Siege and conquest of the Peñon de Vélez de la Gomera, 1564, Österreichische Nationalbibliotek, Vienna, Cat. ÖB.57.

The second image shows in the foreground the fleet used for the operation, with the geography in the background, extremely complex and abrupt, framing the Peñon. It is curious to note that each of the ships appears labelled with its name. The Peñon, seen from the sea, is perceived as impregnable, and merges with the cliff.

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FIG. 17

ings.

FRANZ HOGENBERG.

Peñon de Veles, ACOML. Antique Engrav-

Siege and conquest of a city. Drawing in pen, ink and gouache, no date, Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, inv. 2136.

FIG. 18

The models created by Wijngaerde will be well known and reproduced in later engravings and drawings, especially the first one. Prime examples are found in the one by Giulio Vallino30, Siege and conquest of the peñon de Vélez (1564), in several Flemish engravings, and that by Frans Hogenberg31 popularizing the profile of the Peñon as the prototype of the isolated and unassailable fortress. There is no doubt that this latter served as a model for many other later images, even those which relinquished of the warfare subject32.

This iconographic and emblematic tradition related to the Peñon33 culminates in a draft drawing in ink and gouache which, undoubtedly, was part of a plan for a more elaborate painting, destined to illustrate the main battles of Philip II34. However, the drawing, beyond its relevant significance, does not provide us with new elements regarding the Peñon definition of its fortifications.

Later, in 1565, large and small scale military events converge in the same Mediterranean framework, sometimes quite separated, but always as part of the same strategy.

In this period, a coincident event is the siege of Malta, where the Turks are stopped, with relevant actions, such as the operation on Tetouan’s estuary35 (Martil) to prevent the corsairs from using it. This event appears in an interesting fresco in the palace El Viso del Marqués, depicting the naval action, focused on blocking the waterway by sinking several barges. The operation was directed by the master builder of fortifications and expert in hydraulic engineering, Esteban de Guillisástegui36. Through the painting we can see the fleet and the estuary defended by several coastal turrets, and, in the background, a splendid view of Tetouan, which has been thoroughly studied by José Luis Gómez Barceló37.

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The Decade of the Seventies: Great Victories and Huge Defeats The decade of the seventies in the Fifteen hundreds started with a key naval battle in the war history of the Mediterranean: Lepanto. In all, the period will last for another ten years, due to other actions which were the prelude to a change of rhythm in this geographical area, rather than the end of a conflict; therefore, these events will be considered as the culmination of Philip II’s reign and the sixteenth century.

One of the most outstanding fortresses of the Mediterranean, La Goulette, will become the base for an operation, in 1570, against neighbouring city of Tunis38, always conflictive due to the presence of the Turks. An engraving displays the event carried out

by Alfonso Pimentel, General Captain of La Goulette, where its fortifications appear in detail showing bulwarks and moats to defend the canal that leads to the inner lake.

Tunisia is a big walled city, with settlements beyond the walls, thus proving its demographic growth.

On the other hand, Lepanto (1571) has become one of the most represented naval battles in the history of painting, although the models and forms of the images vary enormously from one author to another, depending on the intended purpose. Beyond those where symbolic, religious or power representations prevail, there are others, more descriptive, where the disposition of the fleets and the battle can be appreciated, as well as others that depict the battle within its geographical context, more or less recognizably. It is true that this is a naval battle, although it is set in a specific space, due to the presence

FIG. 19

Tunis, 1570. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, GE DD-1140 (110RES).

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FIG. 20

G. BRAUN. A

view of Tunis (s. XVII). In Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Museo Naval, Madrid.

of coastal fortresses, as can be observed in some of the many engravings, drawings and paintings made of the event. Some examples of this latter kind show the towers at the Dardanelles, Patras or Lepanto, more as passive witnesses of the event than any other thing, the fresco in the cartographic gallery of the Vatican being the best example of this.

With the triumph at Lepanto, other victories would come, such as the re-occupation of Bizerte and Tunis in 157339. Don Juan de Austria, who arrived at La Goulette commandeering an impressive fleet, ordered Don Álvaro de Bazán to conquer Tunis, which was in the hands of a Turkish garrison. The victory was displayed in another of the frescoes at the palace El Viso del Marqués, where an extraordinary perspective of La Goulette can be seen, with the bulwarks and moats, as well as the existing defensive towers. There is also a symbolic representation of the handover of the keys by Álvaro de Bazán to the expedition leader. This Spanish success will mean the extension of the walls of La Goulette as well as the building of a new fort next to Tunis, as a citadel.

However, these actions were short-lived, as the following year, in August 1574, a definitive attack by the Turks against La Goulette had as a consequence the disappearance of the Spanish presence in this part of the Mediterranean. An engraving in Civitatis Orbis Terrarum shows the event40 together with the state of its fortifications: the quadrangular fort with bulwarks, surrounded by a moat, and also belted by a circuit of six

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bastions defending the isthmus and the channel leading to the lagoon.

From this channel there was a waterway which connected the new fort, still in construction, Nova Arx, as a citadel with six bastions and a moat.

The engraving shows the Turkish army attacking Spanish fortresses during their biggest extension and development41.

Lastly, we will mention two fresco works in the palace El Viso del Marqués. Both were executed very closely FIG. 21 The aid to Ceuta and Tangier. Fresco at the palace El Viso del Marqués. Photography by José Luis Gómez Barceló. in time and they have Don Álvaro de Bazán commandeering his fleet as the main character. The first, dated 24th June 1576, is called The event at Kerkennah Islands, and shows the general when he is about to take the island, surrounded by his troops. The most important element in the painting is the battle, although some urban elements can be identified.

The last representation in this study, which closes this cycle, is The aid to Ceuta and Tangier, which took place in 1578, where these cities were aided by a galley squadron after the disaster at Al-Ksar al-Kebir. During this battle, the Portuguese King Dom Sebastian died, and both fortresses were left undermanned. In the foreground, the painting shows Don Álvaro de Bazán’s galley squadron, and above all, the background, showing the area of the Strait, between Ceuta and Tangier, with several intermediate fortifications, thus offering an overall view of both cities in a highly strategic area. This image is a prelude of the integration, in 1580, of the cities of Ceuta, Tangier and El Jadida (El-Yadida) in the Spanish crown, due to the union between the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain.

CONCLUSIONS

A century of events has left a legacy of a century of images. Images, in the form of drawings, engravings and paintings, which reflect a history in danger of becoming as fragmented as the history of the Mediterranean. However, they are part of a policy continued by the Spanish monarchs during the century, so it is worth reconstructing it from an analytical perspective.

These representations, besides the events, depict the reality of the cities, their walls, ports and the means used in battle. They are, therefore, an invaluable document to understanding the period, and this is the reason for attempting a visual reconstruction of its history.

The images become a priceless document in order to know the state of frontier cities, permanently at war, where solid fortifications were build with a titanic effort of the Spanish monarchy in order to consolidate their control over the Mediterranean.

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NOTES

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38.

Centro Universitario UNED Melilla. C/ Lope de Vega, nº 1, 52080 Melilla. anieto4@hotmail.com Universidad de Málaga y Centro Asociado de la UNED en Málaga. Campus de Teatinos, s/n, 29071. Málaga. srg@uma.es LÓPEZ TORRIJOS, 2008.

BRAVO NIETO, 1993.

BARRANTES MALDONADO, Ilustraciones de la Casa de Niebla, Manuscrito, 1540. Archivo Medina Sidonia.

GARCÍA FIGUERAS, 1943.

Anno domini 1504, ab Hisp. rege catholico Ferdinando V to fortiter expugnata fuit Buglia urbs maritima Africae ... / Ioann. Mai. Expressit. Maior, Johann. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cartes et Plans, GE DD-2987 (8024).

Mahdia, in FRANZ HOGENBERG and G. BRAUN, Civitatis Orbis Terrarum, 1572 -1618. ACOML. Historical engravings.

Royal Palace, Madrid and Royal Alcazar, Seville (National Heritage).

HORN, 1989; VILAR, 1992; CHECA CREMADES, 2000; BUNES IBARRA and FALOMIR FAUS, 2001; BUNES IBARRA, 2006; GONZÁLEZ GARCÍA, 2007.

There is a re-interpretation of this tapestry in the series of engravings «Events in Europe» published towards 1610 in Cologne

by HEGENBERG and SIMON NOVELLANUS (CHECA CREMADES, 2000, 381-382). The cartouche at the bottom says: «Hie habt ihr, wie der Keyser Carolus der V. mit Stattlicher Kriegsrustug. dem Konig von Thusis zur hulffe; in Afric, nit weit von die Goleta, glucklich anhlendett».

TORRIJOS, 2000.

DACOS, 2007.

LILLO CARPIO, 1998.

DESWARTE-ROSA, 1994.

COURDIER, 2013.

This is the case of «The taking of La Goulette», anonymous print of a letter sent from Tunis in 1535, Monasterio Real Biblioteca de El Escorial, sign V-ii-4, nº 19. Or the later engraving: BENIGNI LETTORI, Túnez, 1566. Biblioteca Nacional de Francia, N8490778_JPEG_1_1DM. «Tunetensis Urbis et Guletae Arcis Munitiss. Una cum Adiacentib. Et Portubus Brevis et Certa Descriptio» (Représentation certaine et précise de la ville de Tunis et de la très puissante forteresse de La Goulette avec les alentours et le port). Date 1535, Auteur DEI MUSI dit VENEZIANO AGOSTINO. CHECA CREMADES, 2000, p. 357.

Divi Caroli V. opt. Max. Victoriae ex multis pracuipuae. M. Heemskerc inventor D.V. Curenhert fecit 1555, VII [Conquista de Túnez] /M. Heemskerch Inventor; DV Cuenhert fecit 5. Inscripción: 1535. TUNETAM CAESAR, BELLI VIRTUTE TRIUMPHANS, INGREDITUR VICTOR, CEDENS FUGIT ILICET AFER. Biblioteca Nacional España, ER 2966.

BUNES IBARRA, 2006; EPALZA and VILAR, 1988.

ANTONIO SALAMANCA, Vue d’Alger durant l’attaque de Charles Quint, 1541. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cartes et Plans, GE DD-713 (28).

Algeri, 1541. Geografia, Tavole moderne di geografia de la maggior parte del mondo di diversi autori raccolte et messe secondo l’ordine di Tolomeo con idisegni di molte citta et fortezze di diverse provintie stampate in rame con studio et diligenza in Roma.

ANTOINE LAFRÉRI. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cartes et Plans, GE DD-1140 (106RES).

We have examined a photo kindly provided by D. JOSÉ LUIS GÓMEZ BARCELÓ.

RODRÍGUEZ, 2009.

VILAR, 1998. The text of later copies eliminates the reference to the siege of the fortress, correcting the error.

VILAR, 1992, pp. 460-461.

COLLAZOS, 1564; VERONNE, 1961.

BRAVO NIETO and BELLVER GARRIDO, 2008.

GALERA I MONEGAL, 1998; BUSTAMENTE GARCÍA, 2008.

GIULIO VALLINO, Siege and conquest of the Peñon de Velez, 1564. Il vero & natural sito della villa di Velez de Gomera & l’inespugnabile forte et castello chiamato il Pignon ... / Domenico Zenoi. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cartes et Plans, GE DD-2987 (8059).

FRANZ HOGENBERG. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cartes et Plans, GE DD-2987 (8060).

BRAVO NIETO and BELLVER GARRIDO, 2008.

Any Spanish documentary source in the 16th and seventeenth century to «El Peñon» refers to Vélez de la Gomera and not to Gibraltar, as has been so often and erroneously supposed.

Asedio y toma del Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, 1564. Drawing in pen, ink and gouache, no date, Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, inv. 2136.

MÍNGUEZ, RODRÍGUEZ and ZURIAGA, 2009. The building was finished towards 1575 where the decorative paintings began, to be concluded between 1585 and 1586.

BRAVO NIETO, 1993.

GÓMEZ BARCELÓ, 2015.

La notte del ultimo di Febraro 1570 havendo il molto Ill. sigr. Don Alfonso Pimentel Capitan Gnal de La Goleta inteso per le sue spie, che Uxli teneva sette barchoni à la Porta di Tunise... Bibliothèque Nationale de France, GE DD-1140 (110RES).

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

VILAR, 1992, pp. 383-384, provides information of another engraving, «La pressa di Tunis del Re Catolico. L’anno 1573», which depicts this event.

40. Tunetis Urbis, ac novae eius arcis et Guletae, quae Philippo Hispan. Regi parent uti a Turcis, et Mauris Selimo, Thraciae Rege, Anno Christi 1574 mense Julio et Augusto fixes castris oppugnabantur, effigies..., 1575, R/22249(2) PL. 58. Vista de Túnez (s.

XVII), GEORG BRAUN, Civitates Orbis Terrarum. Museo Naval, Madrid.

41. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas, MPD, 06, 025.

39.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1993), «Poder y arquitectura militar española en el siglo XVI: la organización de la Frontera

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Mediterránea del Sultanato de Fez», in Actas del simposio Juan de Herrera y su influencia. Camargo: 14-17 julio de 1992. Santander, Universidad de Cantabria, pp. 105-115.

BRAVO NIETO, A.

(2005), «El norte de África, los elementos de una presencia», in A. CÁMARA MUÑOZ (coord.), Los

ingenieros militares de la monarquía hispánica en los siglos XVII y XVIII, Madrid, Ministerio de Defensa - Asociación Española de Amigos de los Castillos - Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, pp. 310-321.

BRAVO NIETO, A. and BELLVER GARRIDO, J. A. (2008), El Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera: historia, cultura y sociedad en

la España norteafricana, Melilla, Fundación GASELEC, 550 pp.

(2006), «Vermeyen y los tapices de la conquista de Túnez. Historia y representación», in

BUNES IBARRA, M. Á. DE

B. J. GARCÍA GARCÍA (ed.), La imagen de la guerra en el arte de los antiguos Países Bajos, Madrid, Universidad Com-

plutense, pp. 95-130.

BUNES IBARRA, M. Á. DE and FALOMIR FAUS, M. (2001), «Carlos V, Vermeyen y la conquista de Túnez», in J. L. CASTELLANO

and F. SÁNCHEZ MONTES GONZÁLEZ (coords.), Europeísmo y universidad. Religión, cultura y mentalidad,

Madrid, Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, vol. V, pp. 243-257.

BUNES IBARRA, M. Á. (2006), «Felipe II y la defensa del Mediterráneo: la conquista de Argel», in E. GARCÍA HERNÁN

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BUSTAMANTE GARCÍA, L.

(2008), «La conquista del Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera en 1564», in M. CABAÑAS BRAVO,

A. LÓPEZ-YARTO ELIZALDE

and W. RINCÓN GARCÍA (eds.), Arte, Poder y Sociedad en la España de los siglos XV al

XX, Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, pp. 169-178.

CHECA CREMADES, F. COLLAZOS, B.

(2000), Carlos V: la imagen del poder en el Renacimiento, Madrid, El Viso, 372 pp.

(1564), Comentarios de la fundación y conquista y toma del Peñón y de lo acaescido a los capitanes de

su Magestad desde el año de 1562 hasta el de 64, hechos por Balthasar de Collaços y dirigidos al illustríssimo señor don Antonio de Toledo, prior de sant Joan y cavallerizo mayor de su Magestad y de su consejo de estado y guerra.

COURDIER, Z.

(2013), Les batailles entre chrétienes et ottomans dans la Méditerranée du XVIe siècle. L’etude d’une

iconographie, 1535-1575. Master’s degree dissertation, Université Lumière Lyon 2, directed by DOMINIQUE VALÉRIAN. DACOS, N. (2007), «Julio y Alejandro, grutescos italianos y cartografía flamenca en el Peinador de la Reina», Cuader-

nos de la Alhambra, vol. 42, pp. 80-117.

DESWARTE-ROSA, S. (1994), Expédition de Tunis (1535): images interprétations, répercussions culturelles, Paris, Hon-

oré Champion.

EPALZA, M.

and VILAR, J. B. (1988), Planos y mapas hispánicos de Argelia, siglos XVI-XVIII, Madrid, Instituto His-

pano-Árabe de Cultura.

GALERA I MONEGAL, M.

(1998), Antoon van den Wijngaerde, pintor de ciudades y hechos de armas en la Europa del

Quinientos, Barcelona, Fundación Carlos de Amberes - Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya, 271 p.

GARCÍA FIGUERAS, T.

(1943), Presencia de España en Berbería Central y Oriental. Tremecen-Argel-Túnez-Trípoli,

Madrid, Editora Nacional, 364 pp.

GÓMEZ BARCELÓ, J. L. (2015), «Imágenes de Tetuán: pinturas, grabados, fotografías», Cuadernos del Archivo Central

de Ceuta, nº 20.

GONZÁLEZ GARCÍA, J. L.

(2007), «Pinturas tejidas, La guerra como arte y el arte de la guerra en torno a la empresa

de Túnez (1535)», Reales Sitios: Revista de Patrimonio Nacional, nº 174, pp. 24-47.

HORN, H. J.

(1989), Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen. Painter of Charles V and his Conquest of Tunis, Doornspijk, Davaco

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LILLO CARPIO, M. (1998), «Consideraciones sobre el realismo geográfico de las pinturas sobre la conquista de Túnez

existentes en la casa real vieja de la Alhambra», Papeles de Geografía, nº 28, pp. 55-75.

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(2000), «Las pinturas de la Torre de la Estufa o del Peinador», en Carlos V y la Alhambra, (cat.

exp.), Granada, Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife, pp. 109-129.

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(2008), «Poder, relato y territorio en la pintura del siglo XVI», in M. CABAÑAS BRAVO, A. LÓPEZ-

YARTO ELIZALDE, W. RINCÓN GARCÍA

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and ZURIAGA, V. (2009), El sueño de Eneas, imágenes utópicas de la ciudad, Valencia,

Universidad Jaume I, Servicio de Comunicacion y Publicaciones.

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(2009), «La ciudad en los frescos del Palacio de El Viso del Marqués», in MÍNGUEZ, V., RODRÍGUEZ,

and ZURIAGA, V., El sueño de Eneas, imágenes utópicas de la ciudad, Valencia, Universidad Jaume I, Servicio de

Comunicacion y Publicaciones, pp. 89-120.

VERONNE, C. DE LA

(1961), «Relations et bibliographie de la conquête du Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera en 1564»,

in Les sources inédites de l’histoire du Maroc, Archives et Bibliotheques d’Espagne, t. III, Paris, Paul Geuthner, pp.

59-62.

VILAR, J. B.

(1992), Mapas, Planos y fortificaciones hispánicos de Túnez (s. XVI-XIX), Madrid, Ministerio de Asuntos

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(1998), Mapas, Planos y fortificaciones hispánicos de Libia (1510-1911), Madrid, Ministerio de Asuntos

Exteriores de España.

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10 Designing the Bastion against the Turks: Sicily and Malta* MAURIZIO VESCO1 UniversitĂ degli Studi di Palermo Translation: MULLER WORLDWIDE LINKS S.R.L.

ABSTRACT

The paper explores the issues around the drawing of the military engineers serving the Spanish Crown in the Kingdom of Sicily between sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially focusing on those related to the project of fortifications intended to defend the island from the Ottoman enemy. The analysis is conducted primarily starting from the corpus of drawings, unfortunately very scarce, come down to us, but also looking for other useful points for reflection in the far more numerous indications contained in the archival records. Under investigation are, therefore, the methods and graphic devices adopted by engineers for the more effective representation of the architectural project, interpreted according to the diachronic process of their progressive development and consequent improvement.

KEYWORDS

Sicily, Mediterranean, Malta, navy yard, harbour, fortifications, coastal towers.

247

It is common knowledge that the main focus of the training process of the professional figure of the military engineer is the acquisition of the ability to draw and to adopt the instruments of representation of the architectural project, not only graphic ones but also material using wooden models2.

This delicate process of transfer of competencies and skills, certainly derived originally from the world of painting, was to promote the rapid evolution from the profile of the captain of artillery, the man-at-arms versed in new military strategies tied to the use of artillery, to that of the engineer who, while preserving the main tasks of the former on the battlefield, was subsequently increasingly qualified as a specialist in the field of military architecture responsible for designing city and territorial systems of defence.

A similar phenomenon also occurred in the Kingdom of Sicily, undeniably the Spanish Empire’s most important «bastion» against the Ottoman enemy in the Mediterranean, in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, representation of the design of the island’s system of defence was still the exclusive prerogative of (in some cases highly authoritative) artists in the employ of the Viceroy’s Court. For example, in January 1496, the famed Sicilian painter Riccardo Quartararo3 was paid for the three days’ work dedicated to «designationem Castri ad mare Panormi et maragmate quod de novo fit pro munitione dicti castri»4 – that is to say, for representing the project drawn up by the maestre mayor of the Royal Artillery, the Catalan Baldar Metel (or Meteli), for the citadel that was to encompass the medieval fortress of the Castellammare in Palermo. This representation, almost certainly executed on canvas being easier to transport and preserve in crates or specific cases, was to constitute the only design, in view of Metel’s probably limited drawing skills5, to be followed during construction of the works. The appointment conferred forty years later in 1534

by Viceroy Ettore Pignatelli, Duke of Monteleone, on the famous Italian artist Polidoro da Caravaggio to paint a number of canvasses depicting the fortification projects of Siracusa, Augusta and Milazzo drawn up by Royal Engineer Pietro Antonio Tomasello da Padova6 was certainly of different scope and significance. These were not trazas intended for the construction site, carried out personally by the Venetian technician, but rather commemorative paintings of the fortification works of Monteleone, intended – perhaps – to adorn the walls of the reception rooms of the Viceroy’s residence or, possibly, the Viceroy’s study. The illustrative plan of the design of the fortifications of Palermo, drawn up by engineer Antonio Ferramolino da Bergamo who succeeded Tomasello in the assignment and carried by the Trapani-born Francesco Soprano7 in 1536, at the time of Viceroy Ferrante Gonzaga, was probably intended to serve the same purpose.

The Captain of Artillery of the Kingdom of Naples, Antonello da Trani, a figure who has remained for the most part in shadow, was perhaps one of the first among the technicians appointed to design the Sicilian fortifications to be a skilled draughtsman versed in the art of representation from whom, for example, no fewer than nine drawings of the fortresses of the island were commissioned in 1518, including one for the Castellammare fortess of Palermo8.

Although archival documentation contains numerous explicit references to project drawings by the engineers of the Kingdom of Sicily9, in the first part of the sixteenth cen-

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

tury – Tomasello, Ferramolino, and later Pedro Prado, who it appears also carried out works other than those of fortification10 – no material trace of these remains, at least according to current knowledge. The first sporadic graphic evidence of the design or surveying activities of the technicians working on the island can be dated to the 1560s.

Having been forwarded to the Court11, most of these drawings are now preserved at the Archivo General de Simancas, the historical archives of the Crown.

The question of surveying the territory of the Kingdom and related cartographic rendering, even only partial and for the most diverse purposes (defensive, fiscal, cognitive, encomiastic), by the engineers in the employ of the Crown deserves particular attention.

It is known that, prior to Tiburzio Spannocchi12 and Camillo Camiliani13, authors of two famous manuscript atlases during the government of Viceroy Marco Antonio Colonna, others had attempted similar undertakings, the results of which have unfortunately been lost. It is thought that engineer Antonio Conte wrote «un libro delle fortezze di questo regno», an album of drawings of the fortifications of the island that can be dated between 1568 and 1571 and can probably be ascribed to Carlo Aragona Tagliavia’s first mandate as President of the Kingdom, of which a copy of a single drawing relating to the proposed fortification of the new arsenal of Messina14, mentioned below, has survived. It seems that the following year, during his second interim mandate, the same President appointed their successor, the todesco (in fact from Ticino) Giovanni Antonio del Nobile, to hire a group of artists «per pingere di buoni colori, in tela, con giusti lineamenti delle piante, in prospettiva i luoghi dove si fanno o sonno dissegnati le fortificazioni et insieme il paese della comarca»15. These latter pictorial representations were probably mainly intended to celebrate the fortification campaign of the island undertaken by the Crown but was, in fact, carried out by the viceroys representing the sovereign in Sicily and also by the same President Aragona, dubbed Magnus Siculus, known to be an extraordinary figure on all accounts16.

As regards the above, the main question is the dichotomy between the somewhat «public» image of the Kingdom and its constituent elements, principally the cities – that is to say the image reflected in engravings, atlases and in printed texts – and its corresponding secret or rather hidden image, concealed under the tight seal of state secret.

However, it is worth noting that, from this point of view, the boom of Renaissance vedute painting, spurred by the outstanding publishing success of the Civitates orbis terrarum

by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg17 which, together with Giovanni Botero’s18 Delle cause della grandezza e magnificenza delle città, represents the maximum expression of the typically cinquecentesco supremacy of the city19, must have caused problems to many State secretariats, last but not least that of Madrid20. In fact, the cities represented in the plates of the atlas, including border cities most exposed to enemy attack and the threat of invasion – first and foremost by the Ottoman empire – are rendered with great precision and in detail, therefore also revealing weak points, systems of defence, seats of power and key city fortifications. A particularly eloquent Sicilian case is that of the famous bird’s-eye view of Palermo, contained in Book IV (1588) and modelled on Orazio Maiocco’s slightly earlier version on a loose sheet (1580) that not only depicts the Sicilian capital girt by massive trace italienne fortifications but also reveals the lack of a system of defence of the new port, still under completion, and the inadequate dimensions of

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ALESSANDRO GIORGI. Pianta della città di Palermo, 1575; down: details of Palazzo Reale (left) and townhouse La Ziza (right). España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 09, 060.

FIG. 1

many of its bastions, not yet renewed and still in the original configuration decided by Antonio Ferramolino in 1536.

On the other hand, in a graphic representation of the same city drawn up by Alessandro Giorgi da Lucca, engineer of the Senate of Palermo, the Tuscan technician focused as usual solely on the fortifications. The plan is to some extent ambiguous, not only because the pratices of surveying and design have been merged, using different colours in

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Pianta del circuito murario di Palermo e del litorale settentrionale, 1560-1567. DUFOUR, 1992, p. 51.

FIG. 2

certain sections to distinguish them – common practice at that time –, but also because the report that usually accompanied this is combined with the drawing, written tidily on lines drawn with a ruler21. Also, while remaining true to the specific method of representation of the military engineer (i.e. that which excludes the urban fabric, focusing only on the fortifications), Giorgi also depicts, in a somewhat naive manner, some important architectural elements, first of all two highly symbolic building of the Norman era: the Palazzo Reale and the Zisa, the «mysterious» solatium beyond the walls of the sovereigns founders of the Kingdom of Sicily, to which intellectuals and scholars have long dedicated their attention [FIG. 1]22.

In our opinion, the little-known manuscript plan of Palermo and of its northern territory, preserved in the National Library of Naples,23 should be included amongst the most ancient Sicilian drawings drawn up by engineers. The main subject of the graphic representation, datable between 1560 and 1567, is in our opinion less the city walls than it is the shoreline of the city to the north, to which unusually ample space is dedicated.

It therefore be classified as a survey of the coastal area prior to launching of the project for construction of the large port, for a long period one of the most monumental examples of port architecture of the Mediterranean, not only of the Hapsburgs [FIG. 2]. This could explain its presence in Naples. It must be recalled that the paternity of this major public work, despite some fifty years of gestation, is to be attributed entirely to Viceroy Don Garcia de Toledo who not only promoted its construction but personally engaged, in Genoa, the engineers who were to assist him in drawing up the plan and who were to direct the works for decades24. In fact, Don Garcia departed frequently from Sicily to seek refuge in the refined Neapolitan family residences of Chiaia and Pozzuoli from where he corresponded regularly with the authorities of the island, also receiving – as the documents reveal – many drawings formerly included amongst his papers and now lost, but to which the plan of Palermo perhaps pertained.

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With regard to the supervision exercised by central governmental bodies on peripheral entities to ensure the necessary secrecy of documentation – forbidding not only free circulation but also of printing through the application of state secrecy – it must be said that this constraint did not concern only opinions, instructions and technical reports (escrituras silenciadas25 by definition, as in the case of the Discorso Militare dedicated in 1612

by Antonio Bologna of Palermo to the Viceroy Duke d’Ossuna26) but also to the drawings of military engineers. A highly significant example in the case of Sicily is the extraordinary manuscript codex representing the cities and coastal fortifications of the Kingdom drawn up between 1634 and 1640 by the Gran Geometra Francesco Negro under the expert guidance of mathematician Carlo Maria Ventimiglia, visitator generalis Siciliae arcium27: in fact, in 1637, with the works not yet completed, the Consejo de Italia at a FIG. 3 Comparative table of the solutions for the new arsenal meeting in Madrid established that in Messina and its fortification, 1574; below, detail showing the «no conviene que se estampe nada por different graphic methods employed. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, ser materia de tanta importancia», a 11, 045. more than reasonable response to a request of this nature probably submitted by the authors to the Court28.

Although, as is known, Sicily has been affected by an extremely serious dispersal of its heritage of drawings, with the only traces of this loss preserved in infinite documentary references, the unusually rich corpus of drawings – no fewer than three – illustrating the design of the new arsenal of Messina intended for the imperial fleet, another major port facility desired by the same Viceroy Toledo29, represents an exception. One of these drawings, the latest dated 1574, is particularly interesting with regard to the method of representation perfected by engineers in the second half of the sixteenth century: it consists, in fact, of a comparative table of four different design solutions included on the same sheet using not only colours but also lines of different type and thickness, including the dotted line («la linea di punti, il parere di don Garzia») [FIG. 3]30.

As we have seen, the engineer frequently yielded to the temptation to depict elements in his drawings not strictly pertinent to the topic of fortifications, usually due to their

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 4 LUDOVICO CESANO. Project for the fortification of Syracuse, 1576; below, detail of the written introduction of the design (left) and floor plan of Castel Maniace (right). España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 02, 028.

particular symbolic worth or significance. This is also the case, for example, of Ludovico Cesano’s illustration of the fortifications of Siracusa of 157631, also conceived as a «speaking» drawing enriched as it is with design-related indications and comments and in which the technician also dwells on the graphic rendering of the internal columnar structure of the already mithic Federician fortress of Castel Maniace, a detail clearly without strategic-defensive implications [FIG. 4].

A drawing pertaining to the debate on reinforcement of the fortifications of Siracusa, only a few years later (1578)32, provides an occasion for further reflection on the methods of representation gradually developed by the military engineers working on Sicily.

We refer to the plate relating to fortification of the isthmus of the peninsula on which the city stands; a water-colour drawing of noteworthy geometrical precision in which not only 45° hatching has been used to render ramps, stairs and sloping planes but which introduces for the first time in the Sicilian environment – as can be presumed from drawings known at the moment – an overlapped sheet that permits comparison between the current state of the places and the design proposal, in this case demolition of the Toledo bastion and replacement of this with an original ravelin located between

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FIG. 5 Comparative table with overlapping leaflet of the projects for the isthmus fortification of Syracuse, 1578. España.

Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 08, 018.

the waters of the Porto Marmoreo according to the solution proposed by Scipione Campi [FIG. 5]33.

The expediency of the folding flap applied to the sheet was to become quite popular and was adopted in the Sicilian environment at least until the first half of the seventeenth century as it facilitated more immediate understanding of the changes introduced by the project. It can, therefore, be presumed that drawings of this type were certainly not intended for the construction site but rather to be exhibited to patrons – the sovereign, members of the Consejo, the Viceroy – as confirmed not only by the particular care dedicated to their execution, the use of watercolours and certain affectations in representing the metric scale, but also by the fact that, today, they are found in Spain.

The two drawings by Royal Engineers Giovanni Antonio del Nobile and Giovanni Antonio Salamone, attributable to the lively debate triggered in the seventies and eighties of the sixteenth century concerning fortification of the town of Milazzo – left until then more or less without defences34 – should also be interpreted in this light. This is confirmed not only by the accuracy of the representation, the use of water-colour painting, and the pictorial rendition of the natural landscape; but also (and in particular) by the introduction of legends and sophisticated cartouches, and a certain calligraphic exercise in the inscriptions, clearly motivated by presentation requirements that was incompatible with either the dialogue between technicians or with practical use at the site. Salamone’s drawing is also particularly interesting as it still shows – a rare occurrence – the original grid lines used to make a copy of the original drawing, facilitating proportioning, but also perhaps for enlargement or reduction [FIG. 6].

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Copy of the project by Giovanni Antonio Salamone for the fortification of Milazzo, last quarter of the sixteenth century. DUFOUR, 1992, p. 159.

FIG. 6

It must be said that a review of the methods of representation of military engineers’ project drawings must include the three famous Sicilian codices of Tiburzio Spannocchi, Camillo Camiliani, Francesco Negro and Carlo Maria Ventimiglia. Although these are to be considered mainly as atlases and, therefore, as a collection of relief drawings or lifedrawings of the territory and of the coastal cities with their fortifications, they also contain design views and indications for the reinforcement of the systems of defence.

Certain graphic or page layout expedients adopted by Camiliani to clearly illustrate some of his proposals for the completion, modification or replacement of the coastal towers of Sicily, always represented systematically using two-level plans and axonometric views, are of particular interest. In some cases, the existing tower and the same tower following modification according to the indications of the Tuscan engineer (more often than not with addition of the scarp-wall and battlements) are shown side by side on the same sheet to permit immediate comparison [FIG. 7]35. In others, the change is illustrated, according to a very modern conception of drawing, using the dotted line and different colouring, not only in terms of shade but also the chromatic density of the volumes [FIG. 8]; in others, complete replacement of the building is rendered by overlapping the drawing of its current status with that of the project: such as, for example, the cross-section of a massive scarp-wall tower with battlements supported by corbels, intended to replace the obsolete cylindrical late-medieval tower, is depicted almost transparently, with dotted

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FIG. 7 CAMILLO CAMILIANI. Torre fatta da rimediarsi a Capo del Saurello, 1584. Da SCARLATA, 1993, pp. 391.

FIG. 8 CAMILLO CAMILIANI. Torre fatta da accomodarsi di Rasocolmo, 1584. Da SCARLATA, 1993, pp. 451.

FIG. 9 CAMILLO CAMILIANI. Torre fatta di Lògnina da acconciarsi, 1584. Da SCARLATA, 1993, pp. 430.

lines and a light coloured hatching in order to also reveal its vaulted internal spaces [FIG. 9]36.

Although the project-oriented character of most of the drawings of Camiliani’s manuscript is evident and to some extent intrinsic in the nature of his appointment, this is even more true in the case of Spannocchi’s codex in which text and drawing, parecer and the corresponding representation of the works to be constructed, are shown in some instances on the same sheet, generating more complex views. In this case, the technician from Sienna uses dotted lines, strokes and hatching of different colour for the graphic rendition of his design proposals in numerous plans of the Sicilian coastal cities: new fortifications for the inclusion of suburbs, also farreaching modifications to the layout of the curtain walls in order to comply more

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 10 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Ciudad

de Mazara, 1578; below, details of the five new bastions proposed by the engineer. Descripción de las marinas de toto el Reino de Sicilia, BNE, ms. 788, f. 54v.

precisely with flank protection criteria, the construction of new bastions to replace the other older bastions of unsuitable shape and size or indefensible medieval towers. This is the case of the plan of the city of Mazara where Spannocchi not only shows the ring of the ancient Norman walls characterised by a tight series of square towers unable to withstand the enemy’s artillery fire, but also depicts, with thin dotted lines, the profiles of five small straight-sided bulwarks (baluardillos) he conceived according the principles of trace italienne fortification, for the summits and for the points at which the walls change direction [FIG. 10]37.

In other cases, the pages of the atlases contain what can be considered design views.

Camiliani’s beautiful drawing depicting his proposal for «un forte di bonissima capacità» to be constructed at Capo Milazzo and whose bastioned quadrangular enceinte – amongst others with a highly singular mix of hybrid pike-point and straight-sided bastions – was

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FIG. 11

CAMILLO CAMILIANI.

Forte a farsi al Capo di Melazzo, 1584. Da SCARLATA, 1993, pp. 456-457.

to enclose the tower of the lighthouse located on the extremity of the peninsula and, in the words of the same Florentine, his most cherished project: «Et molto più io lodo questa ultima opera, che nessuna dell’altre»38. Therefore, the large plate incorporates plans at different levels, axonometric projections and almost landscape type views that compare the state of the places before and after construction of the fortress [FIG. 11].

However, the engineer’s drawings did not only concern the city and its walls but also the surrounding territory, usually interpreted, however, from a strategic-defensive point of view. One of the oldest Sicilian drawings of this type is that relating to the territory of Marsala, the author of which is unknown but which can certainly be ascribed to a technician in the employ of the Crown, as its forwarding to the Court of Madrid would seem to confirm39. In the water-color map the town is reduced to a mere symbol to such an extent that the compass rose is enclosed within the perfect square of its circle of walls already equipped with bastions and cavalieri; but, on the other hand, the author dedicates particular attention to depicting the territory; the connection roads, the salt pans, the main economic resource of the area, the great laguna of the Stagnone a short distance from the city, and also its two ports, the piccolo, without any form of protection, and the so-called otturato, i.e. the largest natural harbour whose entrance was blocked in 1573 at the initiative of the President of the Kingdom Carlo Aragona Tagliavia, Duke of Terranova, to the design of the famous Genoese port engineer Fabiano Bursotto [FIG. 12]40.

We consider that the drawing was specifically intended to describe this operation, motivated by military considerations – the port, at a distance from the city, was without fortifications and could therefore be exploited by the Ottoman fleet in an attempt to seize Marsala or even to invade the island – as also revealed, on the one hand, by the related indications on the sheet («porto otturato dal duca di Terranova» and «bocca del porto otturato») and, on the other, by insertion in the map, without any regard for geographical precision, not only of the Egadi islands, a favourite refuge of Turkish ships and corsairs, but also of the distant Pantelleria and of the African coast, depicted at almost a stone’s

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Map of the territory of Marsala and Stagnone lagoon, 1602 (?); to the right, detail of the harbor, rendered useless in 1573. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. MPD, 08, 078.

FIG. 12

throw from the city, for the sole reason of emphasizing the imminent threat of the enemy in the eyes of the distant councillors.

Other Sicilian drawings of military engineers have reached us via less usual channels: we refer in particular to the two drawings inserted in the well-known codex Nuove inespugnabili forme diverse di fortificationi preserved at Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice and attributable to the consultation held in Messina in 1551 for the construction of a fortress at Capo Faro, on the extreme point of the island, for control of the waters of the Strait41. In this case, the anonymous author of the treatise, certainly a technician in the employ of the Kingdom of Naples, does not re-propose a copy but redepicts for reasons of graphic consistency – the codex was with all probability intended to be printed – both his design proposal and that of the engineer Jorge Laínez42, who

Copy of the proyects at Cape Faro for the defense of the Strait of Messina, post 1551; to the left, a proposal from the so-called “Neapolitan anonymus”; to the right, from the engineer JORGE

FIG. 13

LAÍNEZ. SARTOR,

1989, pp. 135, 140.

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259

ANTONINO SPATAFORA. Relief of the area occupied by Spanish troops quarters in Termini Imerese, 1599. ASPa, Tribunale del Real Patrimonio, Consulte, vol. 9, c. 100r.

FIG. 14

were both summoned to appear before the Viceroy Juan de Vega along with other dignitaries and engineers whose identities remain unknown [FIG. 13]43. Therefore, these two important drawings, whose originals have unfortunately been lost, are known to us only through the pages of the Neapolitan manuscript.

Drawing expertise and skill, and in particular the ability to make precise topographic surveys, soon became no longer the exclusive domain of the most highly qualified technicians such as Royal architects and engineers, but increasingly began to spread to the corporation of stone masters. This could explain the high quality of the 1599 drawing by the master builder of the walls of Termini Imerese, Antonino Spatafora, a mason albeit in the employ of the government, for survey of the quartel for the Spanish soldiers under construction; the drawing, published here for the first time, also comprises a large portion of its urban context [FIG. 14]44. The use of several forms of graphic representation perhaps reveal the application of the method of trigonometric surveying at an unexpectedly early stage for the Sicilian environment, where, forty years later, it was to soar to great heights with Carlo Maria Ventimiglia and Francesco Negro, and in particular in the famed manuscript plan of Palermo45, the first orthogonal projection known today of the Sicilian capital.

With regard to this latter extraordinary cartographic product, it must be said that it is not only a survey but contains design indications provided by Ventimiglia in his position as visitatore of the fortresses of the Kingdom: two small folding flaps applied to the map illustrate both the project for ÂŤcorrectionÂť of the shape of the badly-designed Aragona bastion, as well as that for the complete replacement of the ineffective Maqueda bastion

260

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

F. NEGRO, C.M. VENTIMIGLIA. Palermo, 1635-40, detail; to the left, on two overlapping sheets, the plans for the new bastion Moncada (bottom ) and of he alterations of the Aragonese bastion (top); to the right, the status of the places. ARICÒ, 1992, pp. 16-17.

FIG. 15

with one of larger more modern design (the Moncada) depicted this time not only in plan but also in cross-section as required by its complex elevation profile (cavaliere, bastion, counterscarp, and covered roadway) [FIG. 15]46.

A final consideration regarding the Sicilian drawings is offered by the same Madrid codex of Ventimiglia and Negro which, as it is known, incorporates almost a second smaller atlas, i.e. the corpus of project drawings produced by Don Giovanni de’ Medici, Marquis of Santangelo, following his inspection of the defences of the main cities of Sicily and Malta (Augusta, Siracusa, Milazzo, Trapani, Messina, Palermo and La Valletta), all drawn up between April 24 and May 10, 1640 and indicated as «Nove fortificationi di Don Giovanni de’ Medici disegnate» which were subsequently copied by Negro, certainly according to Ventimiglia’s instructions, at the behest of Viceroy Francisco de Melo de Braganza, to be attached to their work47.

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Don GIOVANNI DE’ MEDICI. Project of the fortifications of Milazzo, 1640. Comparison between the copy made by Francesco Negro (left) and the drawing, perhaps the original, kept at the State Archives of Naples (right ). ARICÒ, 1992, p. 173, and DUFOUR, 1992, p. 150.

FIG. 16

Today, we still know little about the figure of this authoritative engineer in the employ of the House of Austria48, an exponent of the so-called Escuela Española de Milán; in particular, practically nothing is known of his journey to the two Mediterranean islands, including the nature and date of his appointment, the names of the travelling companions who certainly accompanied him. In fact, on May 7, 1640, the Viceroy informed the sovereign of the now-imminent dispatch of the codex with the drawings of the fortification «ajustadas por el Marques de S. Angel y algunos ingenieros del Reyno que le acompanaban»49, though, at the moment, the original drawings from which the copies were made have not been found. However, with regard to this point, it must be recalled that the documents of the Pignatelli Aragona Cortés Archive, preserved in the State Archives of Naples, comprise two examples of the same graphic illustrations by the Marquis of Santangelo – those relating to the fortifications of the isthmus of Siracusa and of Milazzo the last one containing also the complete text of the parecer in Castilian [FIG. 16]. These drawings remain today more or less overlooked, and pose numerous questions. Are these further copies over and above those of Ventimigilia’s codex, or are they perhaps originals?

Why are they preserved in this private archive?

On the other hand, the affixing, as a form of endorsement, of an unfortunately not clearly legible signature in the margin of the Neapolitan sheets would suggest drawings of public origin, usually subject to the approval of one or more high-ranking Government officials at the Sicilian viceregal Court – unless it is the signature of the Marquis as we are personally led to believe (Santangelo?). The representation of Siracusa is, however, characterised by particular aspect of great interest: Don Giovanni de’ Medici’s design proposal is in fact traced on a broad folding flap overlapped on the parchment and per-

262

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Comparative table with overlapping leaflets of the projects for the isthmus fortifications of Syracuse, 1640; to the left, the project by Don Giovanni DE' MEDICI, to the right, by royal engineer VINCENZO TEDESCHI. DUFOUR, 1992, p. 323.

FIG. 17

fectly hidden which, when raised, reveals the alternative hypothesis proposed by the engineer of the Kingdom of Sicily Vincenzo Tedeschi [FIG. 17]50. We consider that the latter is the key to understanding the presence of the drawings in the Pignatelli Aragona Cortés Archive. In previous studies, we have already documented the fact that, in 1640, in addition to his prestigious public appointment, Tedeschi also held the position of engineer to the Dukes of Terranova, as the trusted technician of the fourth Duke Don Diego Aragona Tagliavia, Grandee of Spain, Chamberlain of Philip IV of whose Court the Sicilian aristocrat was to become one of the most authoritative representatives51.

Furthermore, the presence of another drawing amongst those in Naples, with the same formal characteristics – line, colouring, medium – relating to the current status of the fortifications of the isthmus of Siracusa and of the works already initiated according to a first project at the time of the inspection by the Tuscan engineer [FIG. 18], would lead to the conclusion that all this documentation is original52 and stems from material produced during the «itinerant» consultation in the spring of 1640. In fact, this would have involved several personages including technicians and authorities who accompanied Don Giovanni de’ Medici from one Sicilian stronghold to another: we imagine Don Carlo Ventimiglia, possibly flanked by Negro, certainly the Royal Engineer Tedeschi, one of the accompanying engineers generically mentioned by de Melo and perhaps also author of the relief drawing of Siracusa, and possibly even the Duke of Terranova himself, in view of his extraordinary influence and closeness to the sovereign, possibly in his position as Grande Almirante of the Kingdom53.

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FIG. 18

VINCENZO TEDESCHI

(?). Isthmus fortification of Syracuse relief, 1640. ASNa, Archivio Pignatelli Aragona Cortes,

XII, 3.

It should not be forgotten that the engineers in the employ of the Spanish Crown also furnished their services in constructing the fortifications of Malta, the extreme bulwark of Christianity, which was exposed to attacks from the Levant and the Barbary Coast, and also, much more than Sicily, to a real risk of invasion. From this point of view, 1530 marked an essential watershed, especially in its relationship with the larger island, when Malta was ceded to the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, refugees from Rhodes that had fallen into the hands of the Turks. Until this date, the Maltese archipelago had, for more than four centuries, been annexed to the Kingdom of Sicily; therefore the engineers working at the Viceroy’s Court had been directly responsible for the defences of such territory, lending both opinions and preparing drawings. This was the case, for example, in March 1526 when Pietro Antonio Tomasello went to Malta to prepare a fortification campaign concerning both the fortress of Birgu and the walls of Mdina, at the behest of Viceroy Ettore Pignatelli, who expressly ordered that, on his return, the necessary drawings had to be delivered to the Court, graphic representations certainly lost during the Turkish attack on the brig that was transporting the engineer on his return journey and during which the technician fell into the enemy’s hands54.

Certain other drawings of Malta – also in this case very few – drawn up by the engineers of the Spanish monarchy have reached us: the previously-mentioned project

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 19 F. NEGRO. Copy of the project of Don GIOVANNI DE' MEDICI for the fortifications of Malta, 1640.

ARICÒ, 1992, pp. 196-197.

of Don Giovanni de’ Medici, known via the copy made in 1640 by Negro, a very complex plan for modification and integration not only of the fortifications of Floriana but also of Senglea and Birgu, illustrated in two large graphic representations55 [FIG. 19], as well as other extant drawings. Two of these in particular are worth mentioning amongst the older drawings preserved in the Archivo General de Simancas are those relating to the fort of Sant’Elmo: the first is a design for presentation purposes datable perhaps to 1543, and for which the possible paternity of the famed Pedro Luis Escrivà has been recently proposed [FIG. 20], while the second is a survey made by Pedro Prado in 1552, two drawings particularly well known due to the mysterious disappearance in 1538 of the author of the Apologia56: therefore a drawing that can be also used as clue to trace a «missing» engineer.

FIG. 20 PEDRO LUIS ESCRIVÀ (?). Project for St. Elmo fortification in Malta, 1543 (?). España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas.

MPD, 08, 63.

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NOTES

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant agreement No. 295960 – COSMED. The following abbreviations are used in the text: AGS - Archivo General de Simancas (General Archive of Simancas); ASPa - Archivio di Stato di Palermo (State Archive of Palermo); BNCR - Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma (National Central Library of Rome); BNE - Biblioteca Nacional de España (National Library of Spain).

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

Università degli Studi di Palermo, Building 8, Viale delle Scienze, stair F4, 1st floor, 90100 Palermo - Italy maurizio.vesco@unipa.it On the role of cabinet-makers in Sicilian architecture between the sixteenth and seventeenth century, see NOBILE, 2012.

On Riccardo Quartararo, see PUGLIATTI, 1998, to which reference should be made for a complete bibliography; with regard to the question of incorrect recognition of Quartararo in the Valencian maestre Riquart, see CONDORELLI’s recent contribution, 2006.

DI MARZO, 1899, p. 195.

The same considerations regarding the graphic skills of Ferdinando’s artillero mayor can be found in GAETA, 2010, p. 147.

VESCO, 2009-2010, pp. 71-72.

With regard to the engineer from Bergamo and his activity in Sicily, see DI GIOVANNI, 1896; TADINI, 1977; TADINI, 1979. For the construction sites of the Sicilian fortifications in the years of Gonzaga, see the recent contribution of GAROFALO, 2015. The document of appointment of the artist is mentioned in PALAZZOLO, 2007, p. 54.

On Antonello da Trani in Sicily, and for the albeit slim bibliography on his activity in general, see VESCO, 2014, and in particular for the reference to the appointment p. 7.

On the institutional figure of the Royal Engineer in Sicily, see VESCO, 2015a.

On Pedro Prado, see ARICÒ, 2012.

For a critical synopsis of the «Sicilian» drawings of Simancas, see ARICÒ, 1982.

On Spannocchi, see MAZZAMUTO, 1986; CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1988; CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 1999; CÁMARA MUÑOZ, 2003; CÁMARA MUÑOZ, infra. Two facsimile reproductions exist of the precious manuscript preserved at the BNE, ms. 788 (Descripción de las marinas de toto el Reino de Sicily): TROVATO, 1993; POLTO, 2001.

On Camiliani and his activities, also in Spain, see SAMONÀ, 1933; NEGRI ARNOLDI, 1974; MAZZAMUTO, 1986; ESTELLA, 1992; ESTELLA, 2000; GAZZÈ, 2001; GAZZÈ, 2009; BOSCH BALLBONA, 2013-2014; LOFFREDO, 2014. The work of Camiliani, comprising a text of literary description and an album of drawings, preserved separately, the first in several examples at the Municipal Library of Palermo and the second at the National Library University of Turin have been collected in SCARLATA’s critical edition, 1993.

AGS, MPD, 25, 084.

ARICÒ, 1992, pp. XIII-XIV. For a profile of Carlo Aragona Tagliavia as statesman and man of government, see SCALISI, 2012; on his commitment in the town planning projects of the Sicilian capital, see VESCO, 2010a.

The work was published in six volumes over a period of almost 50 years by various printers of Cologne; BRAUN et al., 15721617.

BOTERO, 1588.

On this topic, see VESCO, 2011.

For example purposes, reference is made to the fact that Braun, with regard to the map of Hainaut, one of the provinces of the South Flanders, drawn by the famous cartographer Jacques Surhon, was ordered to destroy the plates that he had already engraved despite the ban by the Spanish authorities; KOEMAN et al., 2007, p. 1260.

AGS, MPD, 09, 060.

Reference is made in particular to the precise description of the Zisa contained in ALBERTI, 1561, ff. 48r-50v, the building of which the Dominican historian had commissioned a survey years earlier. On the topic of the Norman myth in Sicilian culture, in particular architectural culture, see NOBILE, 2004; NOBILE, 2015; VESCO, 2015b.

The cartographic document is published in DUFOUR, 1992, p. 51.

Cfr. VESCO, in press.

This expression has been taken from the name of a research team that comprises historians of the Universidad de Alcalà de Henares that investigates documentation prohibited, censured, silenced or destroyed over the centuries and which also promotes a cycle of international conferences on the same topic (http://www.escrituras-silenciadas.com).

A. BOLOGNA, Discorso militare di D. Antonio Bologna nel quale si demostra la maniera che possi esser offeso il Regno e il modo con il quale possi essere difeso dell’incursioni e invasioni de’Nemici con ridurre a memoria tutte le Historie e successi passati, così de tempi antichi come de’ più moderni BNCR, Jesuit ms 424. For a critical reading of the manuscript, see VESCO, 2013.

The two codices are preserved at the BNE, mss. 1 (Plantas de todas las plaças y fortaleças del reyno de Sicilia ...) and 787 (Descripción de Sicilia y sus ciudades), of which the critical edition of ARICÒ, 1992 should be noted.

AGS, Consulta de Oficio, l. 724, ff. 145r-v., consultation of 7 July 1637.

Reference is made to the drawings preserved at the Archivo General de Simancas, classifications AGS, MPD, 22, 026; 25, 084; 11, 045. On the new arsenal of Messina, see ARICÒ, 2002, pp. 43-59. On the same topic and in particular with regard to the central role of the Viceroy in drafting this, see VESCO’s recent contribution, in press.

AGS, MPD, 11, 045.

AGS, MPD, 02, 028.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

32. AGS, MPD, 08, 018.

33. DUFOUR, 1992, p. 339.

34. Reference is made respectively to the drawings preserved at the State Archives of Turin and the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe

of the Uffizi in Florence, published in DUFOUR, 1992, pp. 157, 159.

35. This is the case, for example, of the drawing of the Torre fatta da rimediarsi a Capo del Saurello; SCARLATA, 1993, pp. 391-392.

36. Reference is made to the representations of the Torre fatta da accomodarsi di Rasocolmo and of the Torre fatta di Lògnina da

acconciarsi; SCARLATA, 1993, pp. 451 and 454, pp. 429-430.

37. TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI, Descripción de las marinas de toto el Reino de Sicilia, BNE, ms. 788, ff. 54v-55r.

38. Reference is made to the plate entitled Forte a farsi al Capo di Melazzo; SCARLATA, 1993, pp. 456-457.

39. AGS, MPD, 08, 078.

40. The initiative is mentioned in GIUFFRÉ, 1980, p. 39. With regard to Bursotto’s activity, already engineer of the port of Palermo

at that date and subsequently active in Spain, see CAMÁRA MUÑOZ, 2008; VESCO, in press.

41. SARTOR, 1989.

42. For Jorge Laínez, Duke of Saxony, Marquess of Misnia and Thuringia; see HERNANDO SÁNCHEZ (coord.), 2000, p. 660.

43. In describing a model of quadrangular fort, the anonymous Neapolitan engineer comments as follows: «Non è ponto da tralas-

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

ciar honesto de non commemorar quest’altro forte quadrangulo, maxime essendo stato non poco commendato nel conseglio di guerra del Regno di Sicilia in presentia de l’illustrissimo et excellentissimo signor don Giovan de Vegha ne l’anno 51 dopo il 1500 dalla natività del Signore, existente alhora viceré di esso Regno, quando si trattava di far un forte nella bocca del Pharo [...]; ove fui inviato de Napoli apposta io da alcuni miei signori e padroni. Nel qual luogo erano apposta molti ingeniosi et ingignieri provisionati chiamati apposta a questo effetto [...]. A quali feci con multe circostanze el seguente quadrangulo di numero 4, qual appresso vedrai; qual dopo la sua examinatione fu molto commendato et riserbato con un altro del magnifico messer Zorzi Laynez, spagnol molto nostro familiare e amico, quali o fur mandati o riserbati per sua Maestà [...]. Qual due piante mi è parso notarvele»; SARTOR, 1989, pp. 134-135, 138-141.

ASPa, Tribunal del Real Patrimonio, Consulte, vol. 9, c. 100r.

On this topic in particular, see ARICÒ, 1992, pp. LXXVII-LXXVIII. The report describes respectively the following works: «Il beloardo Terranova (Aragona) [...] due anni a dietro si mese in fabrica e si ritirò la sua fronte di tramontana in dietro, acciò pigliasse la difesa del mezzo della cortina seguente» and «nella Porta Macheda vi era un corpicello antico piccolo, il quale si disfece e oggidì vi si è principiato un beloardo che cuopre col suo fianco la detta porta e piglia le difese in menzo delle colline collaterali e vi si ha disignato un cavaliere nel mezzo per segnoreggiare la campagna e il porto che li soggiace»; see ARICÒ, 1992, p. 12.

This is how the set of drawings is identified in the index of the work; see ARICÒ, 1992, p. 202.

It should be noted that various initial significant reflections on his activity and precise recognition – problems of homonymy had already emerged from the studies of Promis – are contained in recent contributions: COBOS GUERRA et al., 2005, pp. 7481; DEL RÍO BARREDO, 2008.

ARICÒ, 1992, pp. LXXX-LXXXI. In the absence of studies regarding the engineer, reference should be made to his biographic profile in RUGGIERI TRICOLI, 1993.

On Diego Aragona Tagliavia and in particular on his artistic, architectural and town planning commissions, see VESCO, 2010b; VESCO, 2012; GARCÍA CUETO, 2005.

It must be observed that Liliane Dufour has already sustained, albeit only with regard to the design of the fortifications of Milazzo, that it is Don Giovanni de’ Medici’s original; DUFOUR, 1992, p. 151.

The appointment of Grande Almirante is recalled, amongst others, unfortunately without the date of conferment, in EMANUELE, 1754, p. 21.

VESCO, 2009-2010, p. 65.

The drawings are published and recorded in ARICÒ, 1992, pp. 196-199, 221. On this topic, see COBOS GUERRA et al., 2005, pp.

80-81.

We refer to the drawings at references AGS, MPD, 08, 63; 18, 152. For a critical reading of these, see: COBOS GUERRA et al., 2000, pp. 253-255.

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267

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Back to Contents

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11 Defending a Border. Piedmont and Lombardy Cities in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century ANNALISA DAMERI1 Politecnico di Torino Translation: MULLER WORLDWIDE LINKS S.R.L.

ABSTRACT

In the first half of the seventeenth century the clash between France and Spain is reflected in the north of the Italian peninsula: in the past allies, now enemies, the Duchy of Savoy and the State of Milan must necessarily strengthen the border that divides them.

Sieges follow one another in a vain attempt by the French to come to Milan, and the Spaniards to drop Turin. The cities walls closest to the border are constantly monitored, estimated, enhanced. Military engineers at the service of the two countries are engaged to relief, project maintenance. Busca, Clarici, Lechuga, Baldovino, Prestino, Camassa, Beretta are alternated at the service of Milan’s governors, with others of the most prepared engineers of that time: they wonder constantly about changes, enhancements and adjustments to new strategic and defensive needs. The drawings, the paper cities, now kept in European archives, tell us the many states, too many and ephemeral boundaries, the difficult defence of the many and never quiet borders.

KEYWORDS

Sabaudian Piedmont, Lombardy, State of Milan, military engineers, seventeenth century.

271

FIG. 1

GIOVANNI STEFANO CANTONI.

Citta di Turino, 1660. BNBMi, AE, XII, 28.

In 1666, Stefano Cantoni drew an atlas2 that re-united on paper what was cleft by politics: the cities of the north of the Italian peninsula, still divided at that time between the State of Milan (within the orbit of Spain) and Sabaudian Piedmont3 which, from the sixteenth century, were in some periods often hostile allies. On the constantly-shifting border, embroiled in the vicissitudes of an uneasy peace and tumultuous war, in an uninterrupted succession of sieges, conquests and re-conquests, the fortifications of the cities were continually monitored, surveyed and reinforced. The military engineers in the service of the two states were constantly engaged in surveying, design and maintenance works and, last but not least, in spying missions directed towards stealing the secrets of the enemy and identifying any potential vulnerability. [FIG. 1] The Spanish monarchy considered the acquisition of drawings and maps to be a top priority in order to gather knowledge of the territory and of the design of fortifications and systems of defence. These drawings and maps were commissioned by the «illuminated» Governors and produced by military engineers professionally trained to carry out this task. In many cases, the drawings of cities and maps of the territories, once used as working instruments by the military and administrators, became sought-after items of the scholarly collectors’ movement that characterised the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and, in particular, the Court of Madrid.

Drawing was the main instrument: a figurative account that, today, still illustrates the war between Piedmont and Lombardy, transformed at that time into permanent battlefields and the scene of a series of sieges in a vain attempt by the French to reach Milan and by the Spanish to seize Turin (besieged, partially occupied but never definitively captured). These «paper cities» populate atlases and loose sheets, highlighting the many

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

states, the too many ephemeral boundaries, the difficulty of defending the many, never completely untroubled borders. To counter the risk of a possible attack, the area of Milan, strategic for the Spanish Government, had to be protected by reorganizing a complex, modern and solid territorial system of defence. As already mentioned, it was considered that the western border could withstand a hypothetical but not improbable attack only if a set of fortified cities were prepared to cooperate.

«QUASI ANELLI DI UNA CATENA»

In the early seventeenth century, for Spain, the State of Milan together with the Netherlands became one of the main theatres of the war intended to gain supremacy in Europe, with a consequent urgent need to control the borders with the Duchy of Savoy and the Republic of Venice and also to maintain supremacy on the two different routes to Flanders4. Ceaseless work on the modernisation and reinforcement of fortifications and strongholds and continuous routine maintenance was accompanied by the fervent activity of the engineers of the State of Milan and Duchy of Savoy, still allies in the early years of the century, directed towards reinforcing the borders. The activity of fortification could not be interrupted and no ally could be trusted; coalitions could be overthrown very rapidly and no frontier could be left unguarded or vulnerable. Until the closing years of the sixteenth century, the State of Milan had not invested significantly in defending its western border, trusting in its alliance with the Duchy of Savoy and preferring to protect itself to the east against the threat of the Republic of Venice5. As the military situation gradually deteriorated, investments were diverted towards sustaining reinforcement of the western border: Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy, an ally of Spain, first of all clashed with the French, thereby undermining the safety of the western border, subsequently sealing an alliance with France and forcing the people of Milan to reinforce the defences towards Piedmont.

In September 1600, Pedro Henriquez d’Azevedo y Alvarez de Toledo, Count of Fuentes de Valdepero was appointed Governor of Milan. Sustained by experience acquired during the war of Flanders, Fuentes immediately grasped the problematic situation of the obsolete and cumbersome artillery6 and the still late-Medieval style fortifications. The Governor was accompanied by Cristóbal Lechuga «de los hombres más intelligentes de la nación y de mayor servicio»7 having had the occasion to personally verify his abilities during the years spent in the Netherlands, granting him the rank of captain and command of a company of arquebusiers. The aim was to reinforce the defences of the entire state, modernising the fortifications of the many strongholds and reinforcing the territorial system of defence, if necessary constructing new forts and fortresses. The Flanders war, in which they had both participated, had confirmed the importance of the bastion system of fortification8.

Over a period of ten years, the Governor enlisted the cooperation of expert military engineers including, in addition to Lechuga, Gabrio Busca and Gaspare Baldovino. The need to obtain funds, the desire to involve the local communities and their subsequent refusal, generated an intense exchange of correspondence between Milan, Spain and the various cities involved, between Fuentes, Philip III and the local Governors; documents that, in certain case studies, have made it possible to verify the dynamics and problems,

PIEDMONT AND LOMBARDY CITIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

273

FIG. 2

GABRIO BUSCA. Alessandria.

Borgo [1602]. BCBPv, ms. II, 59.

timing and stage of completion of the works undertaken9. A series of competencies crystallised around Count Fuentes and the service of the state which resulted in the drawing up of treaties10, in the setting up of an artillery school11, in addition to a set of surveys and projects of the most important cities.

A series of reports on surveys, projects and construction sites intended to reinforce the strongholds of the state were drawn up from the closing months of 1600 and throughout the following decade (Fuentes died in 1610). In particular, the mainstay of the system of defence of the western border was the solidity and reciprocal cooperation of the strongholds of Novara, Mortara, Pavia, Tortona, Valenza, Alessandria12; many of the engineers in the employ of Lombardy and Spain who directed their studies to this area between the end of the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth century focussed attention on these cities, drawing up descriptions of their current condition and related reinforcement projects.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, military engineer Gabrio Busca drew up a report firmly stressing the importance of this territorial system of defence of the possessions of Milan: a ÂŤchainÂť in which the single strongholds were to be designed in such a way as to cooperate and provide each other with mutual support. Gabrio Busca described the ter-

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 3

GABRIO

BUSCA.

Mortara [1602].

BCBPv, ms. II, 59.

ritories, highlighting their critical points and the natural features that, if necessary, could play a leading role in defence; he also focussed on what had been accomplished in past decades and, in some cases, proposed interventions to be completed in the short term at reduced cost. This did not, however, avert the possibility of an enemy attack as, if only one link in the chain were to fail, the entire state might capitulate before the assault of the French. At the turn of the century, the fortified towns modernised only fifty years earlier already showed the signs of time, revealing the unsuitability of the materials used [FIG. 2].

«Per far fronte al Piemonte et Monferrato, che si stima la parte più pericolosa di tutte, per rispetto dei Francesi, s’è fatto capo di Tortona, Alessandria, Valenza, Mortara et Novara.

Le quali se altre volte tenivano nome di fortezze come fabricate di terra, et secondo la maniera di quei tempi, hora sono tutte guaste, et consumate dalle ingiurie delle stagioni, et del tempo tengono grandissima necessità di essere ristaurate et rinovate in migliore maniera. […] Tutti i quali luoghi quasi anelli di una catena si vanno incatenando et collegando l’uno all’altro et rinchiudendo la più parte dei confini dello stato […] perché Lecco può dar mano a Como, Como ad Angera, et questa ad Arona et Arona a Domodossola che se ne resta molto lontana ma principalmente corrisponde a Novara, Novara a Mortara, Mortara a Valenza, Valenza ad Alessandria, Alessandria a Tortona, Tortona a Voghera, et a Pavia. Pavia a Cremona, Cremona a Pizzighettone, Pizzighettone a Lodi, Lodi a Trezzo, et Trezzo a Lecco onde si cominciò. Da Pavia fino a Cremona è un lungo tratto senza fortezza però il Po ci serve come muro […] La maggior fortezza di questo stato consiste nei fiumi»13.

Busca’s report was accompanied by drawings, some drafted by Giovanni Battista Clarici14 and others by Busca [FIG. 3]15. Clarici probably accompanied Busca in visiting the

PIEDMONT AND LOMBARDY CITIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

275

FIG. 4

GIOVANNI BATTISTA CLARICI.

Novara [1602]. BCBPv, ms. II, 59.

FIG. 5

GIOVANNI BATTISTA CLARICI.

Tortona [1602]. BCBPv, ms. II, 59.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

fortresses of the Duchy: in 1576, Antonio de Guzmán, Governor of Milan had already ordered him in the name of Philip II to draw up: «a description of the entire State of Milan with the plans of certain particular places»16. This commitment certainly lasted for years and, in a letter of 1580, the same engineer refers to surveys carried out in certain cities (Alessandria, Novara, Valenza, Mortara) [FIGS. 4 and 5].

The new political context, forbearer of possible wars, and the sensitivity demonstrated

by Fuentes with regard to reinforcement of the military structures of the state resulted in an inevitable reconfiguration of the systems of defence of Milan. Following the peace treaty of Lyon (March 1601) between France and Savoy, the Privy Council ordered Fuentes to visit the Lombard fortresses in order to verify their potential and any shortcomings17. Between 1601 and 1610, Cristóbal Lechuga was engaged to make more than twenty «secret journeys» to inspect the fortifications, in some cases accompanied by Gabrio Busca and Gaspare Baldovino18. Lechuga cooperated with Busca from 1603 onwards in the design and construction of the fort of Fuentes at the entrance to the Valtellina19.

To offset the risk of a possible attack, the area of Milan, strategic for the Spanish Government, was to be protected by reorganizing a complex, modern and sturdy territorial system of defence. As already mentioned, it was considered that the western border could withstand a hypothetical but not improbable attack only if a set of fortified cities were prepared to cooperate; unfortunately, despite the works carried out fairly recently on some of these, these were in a serious state of disrepair, as stressed by Busca. In May 1604, Fuentes requested two hundred thousand scudi from Philip III to strengthen the fortifications at Cremona, Alessandria, Pavia and Novara20. By the summer, half of the sum requested had been received in Milan, accompanied by an exhortation to start the works as soon as possible. In November of the same year, Fuentes set off to inspect the cities and fortresses of the state, accompanied by military engineers and persons «de ciencia y esperiencia». On November 1, the Governor left the capital for Como and the fort of Fuentes, still under construction. Lecco, Trezzo, the canal on the Adda, Soncino, Cremona were the next stages of the journey. Fuentes decided to construct a new citadel at Cremona, and also at Alessandria, thereby reiterating Fratino’s considerations in the previous century21. It was concluded that, in the case of war, the city of Mortara could be fortified in the short term, and the Governor finally arrived in Novara where it was decided not to construct a citadel due to the presence of the Cathedral, which was not to be demolished, but to broaden the ring of the walls22.

Various outline projects were drawn up on the basis of the surveys and decisions taken

by Fuentes and his collaborators and the problem immediately become of a financial nature: how to allocate the cost between the Sovereign and the State and which citizens were to be involved. Starting from the previous century, the cost of fortifying the cities was paid one third by the Sovereign and two thirds by the State, whereas works on the citadels were traditionally paid entirely by the Sovereign23. For the two completely new citadels of Cremona and Alessandria, direct participation of the cities involved was requested considering that the soldiers would be housed in the two structures. The longstanding problem of financing delayed the start of works at the sites: only part of the sum requested for the works planned at Novara, Alessandria, Cremona and Soncino (basically

PIEDMONT AND LOMBARDY CITIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

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FIG. 6

GIORGIO PALEARI FRATINO.

FIG. 7

Anonymous. Alexandria Ciudad, n.d. [1604-1608]. BNE, ms. 12678, c. 22.

278

Alisandria, n.d. [1560 circa]. BSMon, Piante di Forte[zze] d’Italia, fol. 34r.

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

to contrast the Republic of Venice) was received. The works were initiated only at Novara24. As regards the citadels planned at Cremona and Alessandria, nothing was done and was ever to be done. Due to problems such as how to obtain the money required, the hostility of the citizens and clergy, the outbreak of war following the alliance between the Duchy of Savoy and France, together with the death of Governor Fuentes, the projects remained as such. One of the last operations decided by the Governor in 1608 was the demolition of the old fortifications of Novara following completion of the new bastion fortifications.

Busca’s maps and drawings precede, by a few years, an atlas of drawings of the city preserved at the National Library of Spain which, for certain cities, illustrates surveys of their current condition overlapped with ambitious projects, most of which were to remain on paper. Although, on the one hand, suggestions already present in Giorgio Paleari Fratino’s sixteenth century drawings are reiterated, subsequent decisions were to be influenced by other proposals and ideas. The atlas25, which is not dated or signed and was formerly dated to the reign of Philip III26, can, in the opinion of the author, be ascribed to the years immediately after 1604 but no later than 1608 and it is considered that it may represent a trace of what was proposed on the basis of the inspections and surveys made during Fuentes’ journey [FIGS. 6 and 7].

For certain cities, the reiteration of certain already proposed design suggestions is clear; two large pentagonal citadels were planned in particular for Alessandria and Cremona27: the drawing of Alessandria preserved in Madrid reflects and improves, not only from a graphical point of view, the indications formulated by Fratino in around 1560 and not shared by Busca28. The anonymous military engineer has focused attention on construction of a bastion system of fortification to strengthen the existing, now obsolete fortifications, with reinforcement of the sixteenth century citadel and fortification to protect the entrance. Reduction of the perimeter of the borough of Borgoglio, already proposed

FIG. 8

Anonymous. Novara Ciudad, n.d.

[1604-1608].

BNE, ms.

12678, c. 30.

PIEDMONT AND LOMBARDY CITIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

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FIG. 9

FIG. 10

Anonymous. Pavia, n.d. [1604-1608]. BNE, ms. 12678, c. 6.

Anonymous. Mortara, n.d. [1604-1608]. BNE, ms. 12678, c. 28.

by Fratino and stressed by Busca, was envisaged29. A pentagonal citadel on the banks of the river Tanaro, opposite Borgoglio, desired by Fuentes and Lechuga, is drawn on a transparency. This was never constructed but, from that moment until construction of the Savoy citadel more than a hundred years later, the point identified by the anonymous Spanish draughtsman was continuously and constantly modified: control of the river and

280

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

defence of the city could be assured only by reinforcing and equipping this particular section of the fortifications [FIGS. 8-10]30.

The plate dedicated to Valenza is a survey similarly to that of Tortona with its castle, one of the most ancient drawings identified today as referring to the city walls. In the plate dedicated to Mortara, the design of a new bastion system of fortification, already envisaged partly by Busca, that modifies the entire perimeter also with far-reaching demolition, is superimposed on the survey. Only short sections of the curtain wall of the ancient fortifications have been re-used while the dimensions and plan of all the bastions have been reconfigured: this project was also to remain only on paper. The drawing dedicated to Novara has been taken from a project by Fratino for broadening of the sixteenth century bastion fortifications: the de facto situation is indicated in red and the extension of the fortifications starts from the fourth bastion. The existing bastions were broadened and reinforced, adding eight and reducing the length of the curtain walls.

Busca report, Clarici’s drawings (also preserved in other archives), the atlas of drawings preserved in Madrid and the various expert appraisals reflect the fortification surveys and projects that started to be adopted at the start of the seventeenth century. In most cases, the works of adaptation and reinforcement undertaken in the previous century were still in course. The financial problems that afflicted the State of Milano prevented construction with the necessary rapidity; the military engineers constantly discussed modifications, reinforcements and adaptations to cater to new strategic-defensive requirements. In this contradictory context marked by decisions, often revoked, an extremely unstable and unpredictable political situation, the aim was to reinforce and modernise the fortifications of the city still, for the most part, of late-Medieval design.

«EL CORAÇÓN Y EL CENTRO DE LA MONARCHIA»31

The death of Philip III (1621) and the ascension to the throne of the «rey planeta» did not divert attention from the strongholds of Milan and, in particular, from the problematic western border. In 1622, Gaspare Baldovino32, realizing their potential, drafted a number of survey and project drawings for reinforcement of the fortifications of some of the most strategically important strongholds of Milan. It is highly probable that Baldovino knew what Gabrio Busca had written and advocated years earlier: dedicate attention to strongholds on the borders and consequently money and materials for reinforcement of the fortifications is a strategic operation to guarantee optimal resistance to any possible enemy assault33. Baldovino describes the cities in detail, identifying their strong points and also weaknesses to be remedied. «La ciudad de Alexandria conviene mucho poner muy endefensa porq. es la Plaza mas Importante que VMS tiene en aquellos estados»34. The perimeter of the fortifications is surrounded by a vast plain; the bastions, of small size, are in urgent need of reinforcement. Attention is focussed on construction of bastions in order to reinforce the fortifications of the city, adopting two different solutions. The first (indicated with the letter G) is the most expensive (between 150,000 and 286,000 scudi) and envisages the construction of articulated fortification works to replace the not easily defensible earth-filled bastions. The long curtain walls are an easy target in the case of

PIEDMONT AND LOMBARDY CITIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

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FIG. 11

GASPARE BALDOVINO.

Alessandria G, 1622. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General

de Simancas. MPD, 7, 202.

FIG. 12

GASPARE BALDOVINO.

Valenza, 1622. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de

Simancas. MPD, 7, 201.

282

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 13

FRANCESCO PRESTINO.

Cità de Alessa, 1635. AST, Corte, Monferrato, Feudi, ad v. Alessandria, m. 5, n. 1.

siege; therefore it is necessary to construct a bastion system of fortification with advanced works: bastions, ravelins and a covered roadway would have guaranteed defence, thanks to cross-fire, in the case of attack [FIGS. 11 and 12].

Also in 1626 Carlo Coloma, soldier and diplomat and for a short period captain of the light cavalry of the «Milanesado», firmly declared his attention: «[…] el Estado de Milán puede iustíssimamente llamarse el coraçón y el centro de la Monarchia de V.M., por lo menos de todos los Reynos y estados contenidos en este emispherio: […] lo que conviene conservar y corroborar esta parte tan noble y de que el parecer se ha tenido tan poco cuydado por los ministros inferiores […]»35. Once again, attention is focussed on the troubled western border and, starting from Lake Maggiore and descending to the South as far as Valenza, Alessandria, Serravalle, Tortona, the various cities and fortresses are described, also prescribing their continuous reinforcement: «sigue luego Alexandría que, después del castillo de Milán, es hoy la plaça mas importante del Estado; estaba casi desmantelada del todo el año passado, mas el duque de Feria, […] la puso de suerte con medias lunas y contraescarpas de tierra y de faxina, que pudiera aguardar un largo sitio: conviene mucho acabar lo començado y proveer aquella ciudad de manera que se pueda defender de dos exércitos […]»36.

With a letter dated October 13, 1633, Philip IV ordered «con ogni prestezza possibile» an atlas of all the fortresses and castles of the State of Milan from Francesco Prestino37, court and military engineer working in this period in Novara, Valenza Po, Alessandria, Mortara, Tortona and Fontaneto d’Agogna [FIG. 13]. Defence of the western border, which

PIEDMONT AND LOMBARDY CITIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

283

once again proved to be strategic in the imminent conflict between the Savoy, now proFrench, and the Spanish was one of his main tasks. Prestino’s activity was interlaced with that of court engineer Francesco Maria Ricchino38 who worked with him at many of the construction sites on the borders with Piedmont: in particular, Ricchino focused on those fortresses that guarantee access by the Spanish troops to the road to Flanders through the area of Asti, Alesandria and Tortona (Rocca d’Arazzo, Annone, Alessandria, Valenza, Tortona, Pontecurone) and also worked in Vercelli and Pavia.

THE «NOTABLE CAMPAÑA» [FIGS. 14-17]

At the end of the 1630s, the conflict between Spain and France, never completely settled, continued to have repercussions on the North of the peninsula, with the Savoy Duchy on the one hand and the State of Milan on the other. The conflict was further exacerbated by the outbreak of civil war in Piedmont affected, after the death of Victor Amadeus 1, by hostility between the Regent Christine of France, ally of the French and her brothers-in-law, Prince Tommaso and Cardinal Maurizio, supported by the Spanish. The attempt to occupy Piedmont, successful only for a few years, by the Marquis of Leganés, Governor of the State of Milan, is documented not only by a series of letters sent to Philip IV, to the Count Duke of Olivares and to other officials but also by an atlas without

Anonymous. Brem, Guzman, in Plantas de las plazas que redimió, fortificó, yganó, [...] el Ex.mo S.or Marques de Legánes [...], n.d. [post 1640]. BNE, ms. 12726, c. 7.

FIG. 14

284

Anonymous. Santhia, in Plantas de las plazas que redimió, fortificó, yganó, [...] el Ex.mo S.or Marques de Legánes [...], n.d. [post 1640]. BNE, ms. 12726, c. 19.

FIG. 15

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Anonymous. Verceli, in Plantas de las plazas que redimió, fortificó, yganó, [...] el Ex.mo S.or Marques de Legánes [...], n.d. [post 1640]. BNE, ms. 12726, c. 8.

FIG. 16

Anonymous. Turin, in Plantas de las plazas que redimió, fortificó, yganó, [...] el Ex.mo S.or Marques de Legánes [...], n.d. [post 1640]. BNE, ms. 12726, c. 20.

FIG. 17

signature now preserved in Madrid39. The twenty plates illustrate surveys and designs for the fortifications of the towns occupied by Leganés and Prince Tommaso as they advanced towards Turin. In some cases, the works, carried out in a few months, to fortify what had been easily conquered, were to permanently modify the urban configuration of the cities. Prestino was certainly in the service of Leganés and it has now been demonstrated that the Governor enlisted as consultant the Jesuit Father Francisco Antonio Camassa, his confessor and professor of military art at the Imperial College of Madrid40.

PIEDMONT AND LOMBARDY CITIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

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FIG. 18

Sitio y defensa de la ciudad de Pavía. KAS, Handritade Kartverk, vol. 25, tav. 96.

Prestino signed a report regarding Vercelli when the city, after being conquered by Leganés, became and remained until 165941 the extreme outpost of Spanish domination.

A connection was to be created with the major systems of territorial control that, from the State of Milan, furnished arms, provisions and troops using the fort of Sandoval as intermediate stage. The Spanish wanted to insert Vercelli in the «chain» of fortified cities already stressed by Busca.

THE PAPER CITIES [FIGS. 18 and 19]

In the mid-century period, a few years prior to signing the Treaty of the Pyrenees, a scholarly patron, Don Gaspar Mendez de Haro y Guzmán VII Marquis of Carpio and Heliche, appointed the Bolognese artist Leonardo De Ferrari to make water-colour copies of many city drawings42. The cartographic project did not hide the patron’s ambitions: depict the Kingdom of Spain in the era of Philip IV, with a certain degree of poetic licence, emphasizing the territories aspired to but never conquered on a long-term basis, in a sort of extraniation from reality, intended to exalt the power of the King and to deny a truth difficult to accept: the inexorable end of a hegemony. The atlas he commissioned reflects his main interests: art, politics, knowledge of the territory for the purpose of drafting military strategies. It was in this cultural milieu that Don Gaspar’s «project» took shape: incorporate the many drawings owned or perhaps consultable at Court in an atlas, entrusting

286

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 19

Planta de Trin. KAS, Handritade Kartverk, vol. 25, tav. 118.

copying of these to the hand of a single artist. The attention dedicated to the drawings of cities intended to acquire military knowledge of the territory, for defence and attack, omitting peculiarly strategic elements and amplifying others for intimidatory purposes, is also justified by the fact that, between 1655 and 1657, at the end of the Franco-Spanish war, Don Gaspar was part of the Spanish army in Italy. Through purchases and vast legacies, he was in possession of maps and sketches from different cultural environments: he was seized by the desire to form a single «theatrum», a uniform collection, a sort of virtual story.

Unlike others produced in the same period, the Heliche atlas is not conceived by an engineer, architect, geographer or cosmographer but commissioned from an artist who reproduces and recopies plans and maps of different origin. The painted tables reflect the different originals reproduced, of heterogeneous design, origin, dimensions and purposes. The artist harmonises and refines a substantial set of plans, views and descriptions of sieges and battles. The method of work is specified in the plate dedicated to Pavia43, depicted at a crucial moment, the siege of July 24 and September 14 1655, the year in which the work was delivered to Heliche: this bears the phrase «traducido y reducido de grande a pequeño, por Don Leonardo de Ferrari». The result is an eclectic atlas, probably completed in great haste, conditioned by the material made available or, on the contrary, made inaccessible. Imperfect or incomplete, the atlas is the key to understanding the use of urban and territorial plans for military, strategic and propagandistic purposes in seventeenth century Europe.

PIEDMONT AND LOMBARDY CITIES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

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The impressive legend that accompanies the drawing of Pavia indicates another detail that throws greater light on the method of creation of the atlas: «todo delineado por el Cap.no Gaspar Barreta Yngeniero Regio cameral y del Ex.to». The original, subsequently copied and reduced in size, is by Gaspare Beretta. At this point, it is easier to understand the precision of the indications provided by one of the most important seventeenth century military engineers who served in the Spanish army for 64 years (1639-1703) in the service of Spain in Lombardy, chief engineer of the State of Milan, expert in fortifications44. Beretta commanded the siege of Trino, and was also present at Crescentino and Casale Monferrato in the same year. He was subsequently present at «Rocchetta on the river Tanaro», in the defence of Vicolongo in the area of Novara and at Pavia in 1655.

Don Gaspar’s father, Luis, was certainly an admirer of Beretta’s military expertise, having in 1661, as «valido» of Philip IV, summoned the Milan engineer to the court of Madrid «para servir en esta guerra de España»45, as written by de Haro to the Governor of Milan; his opinion is asked regarding the proposal (never implemented) to exchange the Cremonese with the Monferrato. The Lombard engineer, a man of unequalled experience, could help to understand positive and negative aspects, insofar as informed of the real essence of the fortified structures of territory

THE EPILOGUE [FIG. 20]

The siege of Alessandria in 165746, immortalised by an unknown hand, was one of the last clashes in the North of the peninsula prior to signing of the treaty on the Isola dei Fagiani that was to temporarily restored peace on the continent. In this case, the drawing was not intended for military purposes but to commemorate the frenetic activities of the battalions that occupied the plain around the city. The siege in the summer of 1657 was to see, on opposite sides, the Spanish-Lombard army, sent to rescue the besieged citizens of Alessandria, in agreement with the Swiss of Canton Grisons, with the Austrians and the Duke of Mantua. On the other hand, the Franco-Savoyard army could rely on the alliance with the Duke of Modena. At the end of an epic battle, the unconquered city was to remain within the orbit of Lombardy for around fifty years47. The city was surrounded by the Franco-Savoyard troops who built two pontoon bridges. To enclose a broad strip of territory already conquered, the French constructed a set for fortresses and structures for attack with a battery of canon aimed towards the city and towards the Spanish army sent to relieve the city. The Swiss troops were the first to cross the Bormida and the Spanish batteries were deployed along the bank, fortifying this. Figures who distinguished themselves during the siege included Pompeo Robutti, in the service of Alessandria, and Gaspare Beretta under the orders of the relieving Lombard-Spanish army, the first in the city and the second near the Bormida, in a coalition to free the city from the siege.

The drawings, designs or surveys of the many military engineers who were to follow each other in the service of Spain and Lombardy, with the aim of strengthening the defences, relate a history not only of sieges, battles and rapid permanent or temporary fortification works but also of years of peace marked by ceaseless construction works

288

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 20 G. P. PERT. Alessandria assediata li XVII luglio et abbandonata li XVIII agosto MDCLVII, n.d. [second half of the seventeenth century, post 1657]. ASAl, ASCAl, s. III, cart 2262/2.

directed towards extending and modernising the bastion fortifications in the fear of a clash: cities and territories are continually shaped and reshaped by the ÂŤneeds of warÂť (and of the long-waited peace). Military cartography remained, for the most part, secret and in the hands of the client or of the designer who carried out in-field surveys using updated instruments. Production was perhaps discontinuous, strongly conditioned by wars and sieges or fears of possible attack, and also heterogeneous: surveys made to acquire knowledge of the conditions of the places, modernisation or reinforcement projects, drawings covered by military secret and often concealed for long periods. Commemorations of battles, showing how the armies were deployed, populate the loose sheets and give life to atlases through reprocessing of confidential but no longer topical material, harmonising their format and representation technique. The atlases of cities and theatres of war cater to a taste for the contemplation of art, the desire for a virtual journey, the passion for collecting, the exaltation and celebration of military power. However, the unchallenged protagonist of the many drawings is always and in any case the city, a Sancta Sanctorum to be defended, the Holy Grail to be conquered.

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NOTES

1.

2.

annalisa.dameri@polito.it Tavola delli desegni de tutto il Stato di Milano e parte di Piemonte et Monfe.o. BNBMi, AE, XII, 28.

2003.

For the area of Milan: Pavia, Valenza, Alessandria, Tortona, Serravalle Scrivia, the fort of Breme, Novara, Mortara, Vigevano, Abbiategrasso, Fontaneto d’Agogna, Domodossola, Como, the Fuentes fort, Lecco, Ponte, Trezzo, Bobbio, Lodi, Pizzighettone, Gera, Moccastorna, Cremona, Sabbioneta, Milan, the castle of Milan, the Sandoval fort close to Vercelli. For Sabaudian Piedmont: Vercelli, San Germano Vercellese, Santhià, Trino Vercellese, Crescentino, Verrua, Asti, Villanova d’Asti, Chivasso, Ceva, Cuneo, Ivrea, Turin, Susa, Monméllian, the «Sencio» fort. Also represented: the «Milanese» enclave in the territory of Genoa, Finale; the Spanish enclave of the island of Elba, Porto Longone; the fortress of the Borromeo family, Arona; two strongholds of the Duke of Mantova, Casale and Nizza Monferrato; the French enclave in Piemonte, Pinerolo; a fortified city in Valtellina under the domination of the Grisons, Tirano; and Genoa.

COBOS GUERRA and DE CASTRO FERNÁNDEZ, 2005.

COPPA, 1999; VIGANÒ, 1998.

GIANNINI, 2000.

AGS, Estado, leg. 1293, 355, Dispaccio del conte de Fuentes a Filippo III, May 6,1604, mentioned in Giannini, 2000, p. 493.

PARKER, 1996.

GIANNINI, 2004.

COPPA, 1999; COPPA, 2004; FIOR, 2007; LECHUGA, 1601; LECHUGA, 1611; BUSCA, 1601.

Bernardo Richino established a military and civil engineering school of which Cristobal Lechuga was one of the most renowned students. Lechuga himself proposed the creation of an academy for engineers at Court. In Lombardy, the artillery school was divided between Milan, Pavia, Alessandria and Cremona. CÁMARA, 2005; GIUSTINA, 2007a.

By 1615, this «chain» of strongholds also included the Sandoval fort at Bulgaro, now Borgo Vercelli, a pentagonal fort that took its name from Minister Francisco Gómez de Sandoval and Rojas Duke of Lerma, constructed at the behest of the Spanish Governor of Milan, Don Giovanni de Mendoza (Marquis of Hinojosa), close to the ford on the river Sesia in order to dominate the road leading from Novara to Vercelli.

Rellatione delle Fortezze di frontiera dello Stato di Milano (BCBPv, ms. II, 59). Relatione delle fortezze di frontiera dello Stato di Milano, June 15, 1602 (BAMi, Ferrari collection, Military Manuscripts, part IV, S. 144 sup. No. CCCLXXXIV) is the copy transcribed, without signature, of Gabrio Busca’s report now preserved in Pavia.

VIGANÒ, 2007b.

The drawings depict the castle of Milan, Alessandria, Mortara, Cremona, with two different plates, Correggio, Pizzighettone, Castellazzo, Cairo «delle Langhe», Novara (signature of Giovanni Battista Clarici), Valenza (signature of Giovanni Battista Clarici), Tortona (signature of Giovanni Battista Clarici), Voghera (the plate is damaged but can be ascribed to Giovanni Battista Clarici), Lecco (signature of Giovanni Battista Clarici), Domodossola (signature of Giovanni Battista Clarici).

ASMi, RCS, s. XXI, n. 10, c 300.

ASMi, RCS, s. XIV, book 4, minutes of the meeting of the Privy Council, Milan, April 2, 1601.

GIANNINI, 2000.

FIOR, BORGHI, SCARAMELLINI and OSIO, 2003.

GIANNINI cita AGS, Estado, leg. 1293, doc. 355.

GIORGIO PALEARI FRATINO, Alisandria, n.d. [1560 circa]. BSMon, Piante di Forte[zze] d’Italia, f. 34r. VIGANÒ, 2004; DAMERI, 2013.

GIANNINI, 2004, p. 307.

GIANNINI, 2004, p. 308. The portion to be paid by citizens was in turn divided between various persons. See also CAMARA, 1998.

GIANNINI, 2004, p. 336 et seq.

BNE, ms. 12678. The drawings show the city of Milan and its castle (two drawings), Pavia, Lodi, Pizzighettone, Soncino, Cremona and its castle (due drawings), Tortona and its castle (due drawings), Alessandria (with a transparency depicting the design of the pentagonal citadel), Valenza, Vigevano, Mortara, Novara (with the ancient perimeter and the new broader bastion fortifications), the fort of Fuentes (the presence of this drawing makes it possible to date the atlas as post 1604), «fuerte que guarda el Rio Ada» (with every probability the fortino d’Adda aka Stallone in the territory of Gera Lario), the castle of Lecco, Finale, Monaco, and a map of the territories between Piedmont and Lombardy showing rivers and the main fortified towns and cities.

CÁMARA, 2005.

The drawing of Cremona preserved in Madrid envisages in addition to extension of the fortifications and the construction of a system of bastions, insertion of the existing castle within a pentagonal citadel to which a drawing is dedicated on a more detailed scale. Fratino, Clarici and Spannocchi had already put forward similar reinforcement proposals. CAMARA, 1998.

BSMon, Piante di forte[zze] d’Italia. VIGANÒ, 2004.

DAMERI, 2013.

DAMERI and LIVRAGHI, 2009.

CARLOS COLOMA, Discurso en que se representa quanto conviene a la Monarchía española la conservación del Estado de Milán, y lo que necesita para su defensa y mayor seguridad, 1626. BNE, ms. 12931 (1), ff. 1-20.

GIOVANNI STEFANO CANTONI,

VIGANÒ,

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

290

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

32. VIGANÒ, 2007b.

33. AGS, Estado, leg. 1926, cc. 141-154. The drawings were made on the same days and concern the cities of Novara, Mortara,

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

Alessandria and Valenza. The plates are identified by the letters A and B (Novara), C and D (Mortara), E and F (Valenza), G and H (Alessandria) and attached to descriptive reports.

AGS, Estado, leg. 1926, cc. 152-152v.

BNE, ms. 12931 (1), f 1.

BNE, ms. 12931 (1), ff. 18-19.

ASMi, UTR, p.a., cart. 745, fasc. Prestino. PERIN, 2007 (albeit with some incongruences).

GIUSTINA, 2007b.

ARROYO MARTÍN, 2002a and 2002b; PÉREZ PRECIADO, 2010. Plantas de las plazas que redimió, fortificó, yganó, [...] el Ex.mo S.or Marques de Legánes [...], dated January 1, 1641 and not signed, BNE, ms. 12726. The atlas comprise the ground plans of Fontane (close to Novara, identifiable as Fontaneto), Annone, Roca, Nizza de la Palia (Nizza Monferrato), Ayan (Agliano near Asti), Punzon, Brem Guzmán, Vercelli, Saliceto, Chivasso, Ivrea, Verrua, Crescentino, Villanova d’Asti, Pontestura, Asti, Moncalvo, Trino, Santhià, Turin.

DAMERI, 2014 and in print.

IACOBONE, 2004.

DAMERI, 2013. The atlas was mentioned for the first time but with various errors in dating and attribution, by Josephson, 1982. The correct dating was established in SÁNCHEZ RUBIO, TESTÓN NÚÑEZ and SÁNCHEZ RUBIO (coords.) (2004), an essential text for analysis of the atlas. See also COBOS GUERRA and DE CASTRO FERNÁNDEZ, 2005; D’ASCENZO, 2010.

KAS, Handritade Kartverk, vol. 25, tav. 96.

VIGANÒ, 2001.

The main source is a collection of documents curated by Beretta: Servicios del conde y maestre de campo Beretta, con breve noticia de sucessos empezando desde el ano 1639 hasta el de 1702, Milan 1702; a copy without frontispiece and with the pages not numbered is preserved in the Biblioteca Braidense of Milan.

PERT, Alessandria assediata li XVII luglio et abbandonata li XVIII agosto MDCLVII, n.d. [second half of the seventeenth century, post 1657] (ASAl, ASCAl, series III, 2262/2).

DAMERI and LIVRAGHI, 2009.

ABBREVIATIONS

AGS: Archivo General de Simancas ASCAl: Archivio Storico Comune Alessandria ASAl: Archivio di Stato Alessandria ASMi: Archivio di Stato Milano AST: Archivio di Stato Torino BAMi: Biblioteca Ambrosiana Milano BCBPv: Biblioteca Civica Bonetta Pavia BNBMi: Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense Milano BNE: Biblioteca Nacional de España BSMon: Bayerische Staatbibliotek München KAS: Krigarkivet Stockholm RCS: Registri Cancelleria Spagnola UTR: Uffici e Tribunali Regi

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III DISSEMINATION: CUSTOM AND FORM

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12 The Rationalisation and Codification of the Cartographic Practices of French Military Engineers under Louis XIV ISABELLE WARMOES1 Musée des plans-reliefs, Paris Translation: CHRISOULA PETRIDIS

ABSTRACT

From 1678, when he was officially appointed Commissaire général des fortifications of Louis XIV, Vauban attempted to structure the organisation of the department of fortifications, and to rationalise and standardise the working methods of military engineers.

He established graphic rules to obtain a uniform representation of the military territories of the kingdom with various scales, and was more particularly interested in the representation of the plans of fortified towns. The graphic codes adopted for the representation of French fortifications will be examined based on an analysis of the cartographic production of military engineers throughout the seventeenth century, Vauban’s papers and military treaties.

KEYWORDS

Louis XIV, Vauban, military mapping, fortifications, plans, France, seventeenth century.

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When Vauban was officially appointed Commissaire général des fortifications in January 1678, he had in fact already been in the post for ten years: in 1668, Louvois, secretary of state for war under Louis XIV, had entrusted him with the responsibility for the fortified towns of his department as well as for the men that maintained and built them.

The incessant wars and the scale of the work carried out on the fortifications of the kingdom of France meant that a great number of military engineers had to be recruited.

Between 1661 and 1691, 350 engineers were hired, and 260 of them were practising every year on average, 160 dependent on the Department of War and 100 on the Navy2.

Forming a rather small military corps, the engineers carried out a large number of activities to serve the extensive conquests undertaken by Louis XIV: they participated in sieges, were responsible for the building campaigns in fortified towns, and elaborated the cartography of the territory necessary for the movement of armies on campaign and the design of fortifications. Between 1668 and 1678, fifty or so fortified towns were constructed while about thirty or so fortifications were razed in the context of the policy of defending the borders were developed by Vauban. At the same time, the War of Devolution (166768) and the Dutch War (1672-78) led to the loss of a great number of engineers, who were killed during the sieges.

In those ten years, Vauban had acquired a perfect knowledge of the fortifications department and its requirements. He summarised his thinking in a report that he wrote for Louvois, entitled Le Directeur général des fortifications [FIG. 1]. Undated, this text seems to have been written at the end of 1677, shortly after the death of Nicolas de Clerville3 in October. It seems to have been Vauban’s credo – he was candidate for the office of Commissaire général des fortifications, which had become vacant. In it, Vauban set out his vision of that office and of the good management of the department in charge of maintaining and building all the kingdom’s fortifications. Destined to remain in manuscript form like almost all of Vauban’s writings because they contained military secrets, a pirated version of the text was nevertheless published in The

FIG. 1 Le Directeur général des fortifications par Mr de Vauban, The Hague, 1685. Paris, Musée des plansreliefs.

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Hague in 16854. Le Directeur général des fortifications met with great success and was reprinted in several complete new editions as well as in the form of extracts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The interest in this volume may be explained as much by the fame of its author as by the nature of its composition, conceived as a vade mecum for the organisation of the department of fortifications and of the practices to be implemented to assure good site management. In it, Vauban also proposes a codification of the graphic rules used by engineers, in particular for the drafting of plans of fortified towns. After he was appointed Commissaire général des fortifications on 4 January 1678, Vauban did not cease implementing these precepts.

THE CARTOGRAPHIC PRACTICES OF MILITARY ENGINEERS BEFORE 1680

The organisation of the department of fortifications was largely the legacy of Le Grand Règlement compiled in 1604 by Sully, superintendent of fortifications under Henri IV, shortly after the appearance of the first French military engineers alongside Italian engineers. This foundational text set out the first instructions for a coordinated mapping of French military space. Sully stated that in each province should be appointed a military engineer seconded by a «conducteur des desseins» (maker of maps and plans) charged with producing «an accurate map of the surface area of [his] department» on which should appear «the bridges fit for the passage of heavy artillery, all the fords or passages that are easy to cross, the rivers, the more or less bad roads» and «at the bottom of the map, the name of all the cities, fortified towns and chateaux that could endure the cannon if they were attacked».

The cartographic works of the early French engineers during the reigns of Henri IV and Louis XIII are mainly known thanks to manuscript military atlases, which have been studied by David Buisseret5 and Emilie d’Orgeix6. Whether works by the same hand or collections of plans collated a posteriori, these manuscript military atlases were conceived according to a determination to provide a rational representation of the area surrounding the fortified towns of the various border provinces of the kingdom. This atlas features a hierarchical organisation of the cartographic representation established by the engineers.

They usually comprised, for each of the fortified towns, a chorographic plan of its surroundings, surveyed between 1,500 and 800 toises (or about between 2,900 and 1,560 metres) around the town to represent the surrounding topography, a master plan, surveyed at 350 toises around the fortified town (or at 682 metres), to show the town defences and the perimeter of the «theatre of attacks» during siege operations, as well as the specific plans presenting in detail the various buildings and military structures making up the fortified town. It is thus a question of mapping on a very large scale, centred on the fortified towns, which provided a fragmented vision of the territories that responded to the needs of military engineers.

The drawing techniques employed by engineers at the time were directly descended from sixteenth century engravings of town views. The drawings were usually vues cavalières, or bird’s-eye views, which allowed all of the elements making up a town and its surrounding territory to be encompassed in a single gaze. They were sometimes also ac-

CARTOGRAPHIC PRACTICES OF FRENCH MILITARY ENGINEERS UNDER LOUIS XIV

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FIG. 2

CHEVALIER DE CLERVILLE.

Plan geometriquement relevé de la Ville Chasteau et Chambre de Brest, avec le bourg de Recouvrance et le territoire adjacent, 1667.

Vincennes, S.H.D., Marine, MS 144207).

companied by profiles of towns presented in the vignettes in the margins of the plans.

The use of a plan to scale for the representation of the outline of the fortifications, in which the interior of the town was not represented, surfaced in the early seventeenth century and was only really developed from the years 1630-40. These combined modes of representation would endure until the 1680s, as evidenced by the plan of Brest executed in 1667 by the Chevalier de Clerville [FIG. 2], and even later for the Navy engineers.

The engineers also used colour codes, sometimes with a legend, to make the plans intelligible. The analysis of surviving plans reveals that red and black were the colours the most commonly used for the outline of the fortifications, red was usually used for stone constructions and black for those in packed earth. Brown was also frequently used.

The variation in the thickness of the lines of the drawing and the intensity of colours enabled engineers to indicate on the same plan the various construction materials used or to represent the different phases in the construction of defensive works. The transformation of the fortifications over time was thus made visible. The modifications of the fortifications were also represented on the plans of the engineers, most frequently by a green line. Thus Pierre Le Muet indicated on each of the plans of his atlas entitled Plans des places fortes de la province de Picardie ensemble la carte generalle des principaux lieux produced in 1631: «The double line represents what is made of masonry / The single the new fortification of earth / The green what remains to be done»7. Yellow began to be used to represent proposed works in the 1630s, as on the plans that made up the atlas entitled Recueil de plans des fortifications de villes de Bourgogne, dating from 16388.

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FIG. 3 Plan de Brest, ou sont marquez les derniers projets de feu Monsieur le Marechal de Vauban. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, 1 VH 446 (T3), n°7a.

The great diversity of cartographic practices still used by military engineers in the 1670s would lead Vauban to standardise the drawing rules and the codes of cartographic representation so that each engineer would use the same graphic language, which was immediately intelligible by all.

THE CODIFICATION OF CARTOGRAPHIC DRAWING RULES FOR MILITARY ENGINEERS BY VAUBAN

Vauban’s determination to endow the department of fortifications with uniform and rational administrative and technical frameworks, allowing for remote management of the works in fortified towns by the central government, manifested itself directly in the text of Le Directeur général des Fortifications, conceived «for the instruction of people directly employed in the fortifications, and who do not yet have all the knowledge required to be able to carry out that role, must do their best to conform to it exactly».

In this volume, Vauban set out the guidelines for execution by engineers of the «envoi», made up of a descriptive report of the fortified town, listing its qualities and faults, and explaining in detail the nature of the planned works to improve the defences and complete the military installations. These reports had to be accompanied by graphic documents that allowed the planned works to be visualised. The representation of cities was henceforth systematically carried out in the form of a plan to scale [FIG. 3]. All of the

CARTOGRAPHIC PRACTICES OF FRENCH MILITARY ENGINEERS UNDER LOUIS XIV

301

FIG. 4

Plan du Mont Dauphin pour servir au projet de l’année 1700. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, 1 VH 1193, n°16/8,

1st sheet.

fortifications, like the architectural elements, are shown on it in plan, in such a way so that each constituent part of the fortified towns could be measured immediately. The graphic elements making up the «envoi» comprise general and specific plans, in addition to detailed sections and elevations [FIGS. 4-6]. This trilogy of modes of representation in architecture, in use since the Renaissance, would thus be set for the centuries to come.

With the aid of the «envois», engineers submitted their projects to Vauban before making clean copies in order to send them to their minister in charge every year. Thus, several copies of the plans were realised. Texts and images had become indissociable, complementing each other to make the clearer.

To facilitate the understanding of the graphic documents contained in the envoi, Vauban also undertook to unify the codes of representation of military drawing. He thus asked the engineers to produce a plan of each fortified town «on which he will duly give a red wash to all completed stone-faced structures, and Indian ink or grey if they are simply earth or turf; distinguishing the parapet from the terreplein by a darker layer where it begins: but where there are none yet, the wash will be uniform, with this observation, the

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Plan en grand du Bastion Royal (2) pour servir a la construction de ses souterrains.

Mont Dauphin le 9e septembre 1700. Vauban.

Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, 1 VH 1193, n°16/5, 2nd sheet.

FIG. 5

FIG. 6 Profil du Bastion Royal (2) pris sur la ligne A.B. Profil du mesme bastion pris en travers sur la ligne C.D. Mont Dauphin le 9e septembre 1700.

Vauban. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, 1 VH 1193, n°16/5, 1rd sheet.

more the work advances and nears its completion, the more said wash should be darkened to match that of the completed structures». These precise, standardised graphic codes aimed to indicate on the plans the various construction materials used for the construction of the ramparts of fortified towns, as well as to report on the progress of fortification works, two important notions for the management – locally and from a distance – of building sites and the maintenance of fortresses. Vauban also imposed the use of yellow for the representation of planned works only, a colour code that endured in the graphic practices of military engineers until the late nineteenth century.

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«The parts that are only planned, and on which no work has been done, will be given a yellow wash, to set them apart from the others, and the other parts of the old plan, where the old structures that will be replaced by the new design, will be simply shown with dotted lines; this is a rule that should be followed exactly to avoid the confusion that the haphazard colouring of the plans could cause if the signification of one colour were mistaken for another».

A few years later, Vauban would make several clarifications concerning the rules of drawing for engineers, collected in Instruction pour les ingénieurs et dessineurs qui levent les Plans des Places Fortes du Roy ou des Cartes. It was printed after his death, in 1714, to be disseminated in all of the fortified towns of the kingdom9.

The first part of Instruction pour les ingénieurs concerns the production of plans of fortified towns, setting out all the information that should appear on them. In addition to the instructions mentioned in Le Directeur général des Fortifications, which only concerned the drawing of the outline of the fortifications, Vauban made it a requirement that the military buildings and vaulted spaces of fortified towns be shown on plans.

«They will mark exactly on the plans of the fortified towns they will survey all the interior and exterior fortifications; to mark works in earth with a red line proposed works in yellow.

They will carefully mark the poternes, gates, all the public buildings relating to fortifications such as arsenals, stores, barracks, underground galleries and other buildings, they will indicate the vaulted spaces with dotted lines as is the custom.

When there are cavaliers in the bastions or elsewhere, they should not be forgotten.

They will also mark the rivers and streams, their names, their sources, their mouths and their courses, with a pointing arrow in their beds, or beside them, if it is too narrow.

It is also important to mark the gates and main roads leading to the fortified towns...

When they make profiles, developments or elevations, relating to the plans, they will mark with letters or numerals the line on which they will have been taken or cut, and will take care to repeat the same letters or numerals on the plans and the profiles».

Vauban also required that maps be given a legend, thus allowing for the immediate and precise identification of all the structures making up each fortified town: «add a legend relating to the numerals that will mark the names of the gates, bastions and other structures, of the main buildings, stores, barracks and all the buildings belonging to the king» and that it should include a compass «that indicates the manner in which they are oriented; always placing the north at the top».

Identical instructions were added for the production of maps: «The engineers or draughtsmen who will work on the maps of the surroundings of these fortified towns or should to map them exactly and precisely both in terms of the distance and position of the fortified town as for the representation of the cities, towns, villages, hamlets, castles, chapels, crosses, share-cropping farms, mills, wooden and stone bridges,

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fords, passages, and woods that will be included. They will follow the scale that will be prescribed by the director engineers.

For maps they will observe what was said for plans...

They will also observe the same thing for roads indicating as much as they can the sunken lanes and the gullies.

They will mark the most precisely that they can the slopes of the mountains, hills, heights and taluses.

They will write correctly and legibly the names of the towns, villages, hamlets, chateaux and woods and place the writing in such a way that they are distinguishable and easily read, and so that they are not confused with the colours that will indicate the countryside, woods, marshes, gardens and other things».

These representations of the various military buildings, like the surroundings of the fortified towns, were the information required by the governors of the fortified towns and the directors of fortifications about the strengths and weaknesses of the fortified town for which they were responsible, as well as the spaces and resources available in case of siege.

While the scale of the detailed drawings was left to the discretion of the directors of the fortified towns, the instructions established the scale for the production of plans and maps: «The scale of the plans of the fortified places will be 1 pouce de Roy to 100 toises and, for the maps, 1 pouce de Roy to 400 toises». The scale of the plans was adapted for the representation of the small fortified structures in order to conserve a good level of information: «When the engineers survey the specific plans of the large or small citadels or chateaux, to make their measurements more legible they will give the plans of the large citadels or chateaux 1 pouce for 25 toises and for the plans of the smaller ones 1 pouce de Roy for 10 toises».

The dimension of the sheets of paper used for the making of maps and plans was also precisely defined: «The paper that is used for the plans of fortified towns for the Recüeil du Roy must be grand raisin double, whose height is 17 pouces de Roy and whose width is twenty-two pouces and three lines.

The paper used for the maps of the surroundings of fortified towns, following the model given by the late M. le Maréchal de Vauban, should be Coulombier à l’Aigle esployée couronnée whose height is 25 pouces de Roy and the width 38 pouces».

Finally, it was recommended that draughtsmen leave a margin on the edge of the maps «to be able to write the necessary remarks and observations there».

In just a few years, Vauban thus established the norms that allowed for the uniform representation, on a large scale, of the fortified towns and their surrounding territories – this cartography fell directly into his field of competence as much for the layout of the fortifications of the territory as for the preparation for the sieges of towns10. L’instruction pour les ingénieurs et dessineurs nevertheless set all the graphic rules for the topographical mapping required for the conduct of war operations that was capable of rendering the elements of the relief and the vegetation over a vast territory.

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The graphic codes were explained and disseminated in the various technical publications published for military engineers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries11. One of the most famous was Hubert Gauthier de Nîmes’ treatise entitled L’art de laver ou nouvelle manière de peindre, published in Paris in 1687 and republished in an expanded edition with the title L’art de dessiner in 1697. Nicolas Buchotte’s Les règles du dessin et du lavis, published in Paris in 1722, offered military engineers a complete and educational practical guide to the rules of architectural and cartographical drawing.

CARTOGRAPHIC PRODUCTION DURING THE REIGN OF LOUIS XIV: PLANS, MAPS, ATLASES AND RELIEF MAPS

Through these foundational texts and the setting up in 1697 of a professional examination for the recruitment of apprentice engineers, Vauban rationalised and standardised the cartographic practices of military engineers.

The technical frameworks required for the uniform management of the department of fortifications were, however, only gradually put into place, mainly after the founding in 1691 of the fortifications department and of the corps of royal engineers, which brought together, under the supervision of Le Peletier de Souzy, all of the engineers of inland and coastal fortified towns12. A record of it survives in the Archives Techniques du Génie, now in the Service Historique de la Défense in Vincennes, the successor to the Dépôt de la Guerre. Created by Louvois in 1688, the Dépôt de la Guerre aimed to centralise and preserve the documents, specifications, maps and plans, correspondence and mémoires relating to the smooth running of the military affairs of the kingdom.

Thus, all of the annual projects designed by the military engineers for each of the fortified towns that ensured the defence of the territory since the late seventeenth have been preserved. The general plans were complemented by detailed plans, sometimes endowed with overlays to indicate different levels of information (the various storeys of the same

FIG. 7 Lille 1713. Partie de l’enceinte de la ville dans laquelle sont marquez les brèches et trous de boulets en jaune.

Les papiers qui retombent font voir les nouveaux ouvrages que les alliez ont faits. Gittard. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, 1 VH 937, n°24-1.

306

FIG. 8 Idem, with overlays lifted. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, 1 VH 937.

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 9

Lille 1713. Profils des nouveaux ouvrages faits par les alliés. Gittard. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, 1 VH 937,

n°24-3.

Lille 1713. Profils des breches qui restent a réparer cottées par des lettres reletives au plan [ci-dessus].

Gittard. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, 1 VH 937, n°24-4.

FIG. 10

building; proposed state and actual state of a structure, etc.). From the early eighteenth century, the plans were often accompanied by profiles, thus providing important indications on the heights and compositions of the earthen fortifications such as the moats, covertways, counterguards and lunettes that comprised the defences of fortified towns [FIGS. 7-10]. The technical details and the explanations of the raison d’être of the various structures were enlarged on in the descriptive mémoires that accompanied this graphical documentation.

In parallel with the production of many plans of fortified towns linked to the «envois» and that of chorographic maps, engineers continued to produce manuscript military atlases, in keeping with those produced the first half of the seventeenth century.

While forty-five such atlases from the first half of the seventeenth century are now kept in the collections of Parisian bibliothèques patrimoniales (heritage libraries) and archives, seventy-eight were produced between 1661 and 1715. Most of them gave regular accounts of the state of the fortifications of border provinces during or after the conflicts carried out during the reign of Louis XIV. The fortified towns of Picardy, Champagne, Trois-Evêchés, Burgundy, Navarre, Languedoc, Provence, Dauphiné, Normandy, Brittany, Poitou, Aunis and Guyenne were thus all represented in 1676,

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Frontispiece of the Atlas entitled Mémoires Projets Plans et Profils des fortifications de Landau exécutées suivant les desseins de Mr le Mareschal de Vauban par le Sr Tarade. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, bibliothèque, Ms. in fol. 15.

FIG. 11

Plan de Landau avec ses environs. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, bibliothèque, Ms. in fol. 15, f°174.

FIG. 12

308

during the Dutch War, in three volumes now in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal13. An Atlas des places fortes du Nord, Champagne et TroisEvêchés, now in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibliothèque nationale de France14, mentions the modifications «on which we are working in the present year of 1677» in all of the fortified towns of these provinces. The analysis of the plans in these volumes gave a good account of the gradual evolution and normalisation of the drawing techniques used by the military engineers who produced them.

This evolution resulted in the standardised production of the atlases that made up the «Collection de Louis XIV» now in the Département des cartes et plans of the Bibliothèque nationale de France15.

As a complement to the atlases bringing together the plans of the fortified towns of the border regions, certain «monographic» atlases of fortified towns appeared in the early years of the eighteenth century. This type of atlas comprised plans produced by the engineer in

Plan de Landau et de ses environs avec les attaques du 4e siege, dont la tranché (sic) a été ouvert (sic) le 24e juin 1713. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, bibliothèque, Ms. in fol. 15, f°179.

FIG. 13

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Plan du réduit de Landau. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, bibliothèque, Ms. in fol. 15, f°188.

FIG. 14

FIG. 15 Elevation and profile of a gate, Landau. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, bibliothèque, Ms. in fol. 15, f°202.

Plan et profil d’une des Tours bastionnée de Landau. Vincennes, S.H.D., Armée de terre, bibliothèque, Ms. in fol. 15, f°206.

FIG. 16

charge of a fortified town or military region, such as those of Landau16 [FIGS. 11-16] or Freiburg17, produced by the engineer Tarade, director of fortifications for Alsace, in 1713. They obeyed the same rules of composition as the regional atlases, with the presentation of the master plans of the fortified town, complemented here with the plans of the details. As these atlases were meant to provide the most complete documentation possible for a given fortified town, they contain many specific plans of military structures, accompanied by sections and elevations. Their production reflects the creation and proliferation of these reference tools by the then nascent corps of military engineers.

The reign of Louis XIV also saw the development of three-dimensional mapping, with the creation of relief plans of the fortified towns of the kingdom.

The practice of producing relief maps, or models of fortified towns, to represent planned fortifications did not seem to be a success with the French military engineers of the first half of the seventeenth century, unlike in other European countries18. No relief map of a fortified site in the kingdom survives, and there is no mention of them in the various archival collections. Nor do the three major military treatises published by Jean Errard (1554-1610)19, Antoine de Ville (1596-1658)20 and Blaise de Pagan (1604-1665)21, the main French military engineers of the first half of the seventeenth century, mention relief maps. In 1663 Alain Manesson Mallet was the first French engineer to have produced a relief map representing the fortified town of Pignerol, which he describes in his treatise Les Travaux de Mars ou l’art de la Guerre. He proclaims himself the originator of Louis XIV’s collection: «It was not long ago that the invention of modelling plans was received in France, and I believe that the plan of Pignerol, which I made for the King in 1663 before I went to Por-

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Relief map of a project for the fort of La Conchée, 1695. Paris, Musée des plans-reliefs. © C. Carlet.

FIG. 17

Relief map of a project for the fort of La Conchée, 1695. When the separate pieces are removed, the interior layouts of the fort may be seen. Paris, Musée des plans-reliefs. © C. Carlet.

FIG. 18

tugal, is the first that ever was presented to His Majesty. I had made it by order of M. le Marquis de Pienne who was then governor of Pignerol, and who made this present to the king. I have to admit that I took ideas for the work from an Italian engineer, but I could say that I thus gave a model on France to many others, who followed it in a most perfect manner»22.

But the collection of Louis XIV was not inaugurated until November 1668, when Louvois commissioned from Vauban the relief map of Ath, which was immediately followed by many others. The first relief maps produced – rather makeshift – were meant to accompany the fortification works carried out by Louis XIV’s engineers in the fortified towns of the Spanish Netherlands conquered at the end of the War of Devolution. Conceived as veritable tools for assessment by the king and his general staff, the models showed in three dimensions the state of progress of the fortification works23. In comparison with two-dimensional cartography, relief maps offered an overall aerial view of the sites, revealing the nature and size of the differences in level, facilitating the comprehension of the layout of the fortifications and enabling the succession of the structures to be grasped immediately. They also served as aids to the comprehension at a distance of fortified sites and served as a basis for the discussion of proposed works.

The relief map of the fort of La Conchée, for example, dated 1695, represents an unbuilt project for a fort built in the open sea off the coast of Saint-Malo. The separate pieces that make up the model, once removed, enabled the interior layouts of the proposed work to be seen [FIGS. 17 and 18].

From the 1680s, the models represented the fortified towns ten or so years after the completion of their fortifications. Like certain military atlases, they henceforth constituted a record of the fortification works implemented and enabled the monarch to materialise the defences of his kingdom.

In parallel with Vauban’s drive to codify drawing techniques, the methods of making relief maps were also standardised in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

The scale of 1 pied to 100 toises (approximately 1/600) was thus adopted for these maps,

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FIG. 19

Relief map of Neuf-Brisach, 1703-1706. Paris, Musée des plans-reliefs. © RMNGP / René-Gabriel Ojéda.

as it was considered the most suitable for clearly representing the detail of the towns and fortifications situated on their territory.

Louis XIV’s collection of relief maps, as it was in the late seventeenth century, is known thanks to an inventory, L’Estat des Plans en Relief qui sont dans les Thuileries, drawn up by Vauban in 1697, the year that saw both the completion of most of the kingdom’s fortification programme and the signing of the Treaty of Rijswijk, which brought an end to the War of the League of Augsburg. It was thus important to Vauban and the king to produce an inventory of the models able to document the fortifications in place. The inventory of relief plans reveals that between 1668 and 1697, 142 models were built, representing 100 fortified sites, certain fortified towns having been represented several times to show the successive states or various defensive projects. The very rapid growth of the collection bears witness to the success of this cartographic practice with Louis XIV and Louvois, veritable pioneers of the production of relief maps [FIG. 19].

As for Vauban, he seems to have had reservations about their usefulness. Of course, to obey Louvois’ orders, he had his engineers make models of the fortified towns being modified or that had just been conquered. But there are few mentions of them in his correspondence, which sometimes implied that relief plans were of secondary interest to him and, in the tradition of French engineers, that he preferred the practice of drawing whose rules he endeavoured to codify. Vauban knew, however, how to use relief maps to help the king or Louvois make better-informed choices of how to modify defences, such as around the relief map of Namur, for example:

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«There is a relief of Namur in the Tuileries; I would ask you to oblige me by accompanying me there. I will have you touch with your finger and your eyes all the flaws of this fortified town, which are many in number, and at the same time make you see how the one imputed to me could be corrected» (Vauban to Louvois, 1695).

Beyond the royal sphere, the usefulness of relief maps as cartographic tools necessary for the good practice of the profession of military engineer was confirmed in the late seventeenth century when Alain Manesson-Mallet added a chapter dedicated to the art of relief in the second edition of his treatise Les Travaux de Mars ou l’art de la guerre, published in 1684, sixteen years after the creation of the collection of Louis XIV. The new edition of Les Travaux de Mars gave engineers a modern overview of the research in progress on the tools placed at their disposition for the successful completion of every project, notably in the domain of military drawing and mapping, including relief maps. Its publication was part of the drive to organise the structure and rationalise the working methods of the corps of royal engineers implemented by Vauban from 1678.

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NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

Musée des plans-reliefs, Hôtel national des Invalides, 75007 Paris, France. isabelle.warmoes@culture.gouv.fr BLANCHARD, 1979, p. 63-66.

Nicolas de Clerville (1610-1677), royal engineer, was the first to occupy the post of Commissaire général des fortifications of France. He was appointed to the post by Mazarin in 1659, and reappointed in 1662.

VAUBAN, 1685.

BUISSERET, 2002.

D’ORGEIX, 1999.

BnF, Arsenal, Ms. 4517.

BnF, Cartes et plans, Rés. Ge. DD. 2662.

BnF, Tolbiac, VP-3568.

Concerning Vauban’s lack of interest in the scientific cartography on a small scale developed in France beginning in 1668 under the aegis of the Académie des Sciences, centred on the work of Picard and La Hire, see MONSAINGEON, 2007.

D’ORGEIX, 1998.

BLANCHARD, 1979.

BnF, Arsenal, Ms. 4417 à 4419.

BnF, Cabinet des estampes, Id 17 fol.

BnF, Cartes et plans, Ge. DD 4586 (1) à (9). Volumes 3 and 8 are missing. The seven volumes of the atlases of the «collection de Louis XIV» have been digitised and may be consulted on line on the site Gallica, the digital reference library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Vincennes, S.H.D, Armée de terre, Bibliothèque, Ms. In fol 15.

Vincennes, S.H.D, Armée de terre, Bibliothèque, Ms. In fol 14a.

DE ROUX, FAUCHERRE, MONSAINGEON, 2007; WARMOES, 2007b.

JEAN ERRARD, La fortification réduicte en art et demonstrée […], Paris, [s.n.], 1600.

A. DE VILLE, Les fortifications du chevalier Antoine de Ville […], Lyon, I. Barlet, 1628 et A. DE VILLE, De la charge des gouverneurs des fortified towns, Paris, M. Guillemot, 1639.

BLAISE-FRANÇOIS DE PAGAN, Les Fortifications du Cte de Pagan, Paris, C. Besongne, 1645.

A. MANESSON-MALLET, Les Travaux de Mars ou l’art de la guerre, vol. 2, p. 173.

DE ROUX, FAUCHERRE, MONSAINGEON, 2007.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works of reference and monographs BLANCHARD, A. (1979),

Les ingénieurs du « Roy » de Louis XIV à Louis XVI. Etude du corps des fortifications, Mont-

pellier, Université Paul-Valéry.

BOUSQUET-BRESSOLIER, C. BUISSERET, D.

(dir.) (1995), L’oeil du cartographe, Paris, C.T.H.S.

(2002), Ingénieurs et fortifications avant Vauban, Paris, C.T.H.S.

PELLETIER, M. (dir.) (2008), La cartographie au temps de Vauban, Actes de la journée d’étude du 30 novembre 2007

(Paris, Musée des Arts et Métiers), Le Monde des cartes, revue du Comité français de Cartographie, n° 195, mars 2008.

DE ROUX, A., FAUCHERRE, N. and MONSAINGEON, G.

(2007), Les plans en relief des places du Roy, Paris, Editions du

patrimoine / Adam Biro.

VAUBAN

(1685), Le Directeur général des fortifications, The Hague, Henri van Bulderen.

[VAUBAN]

(1714), Instruction pour les ingénieurs et dessineurs qui levent les Plans des Places du Roy ou des Cartes. A

Paris, de l’Imprimerie Royale / MDCCXIV. BnF, Tolbiac, VP-3568.

Articles MONSAINGEON, G.

(2008), « Vauban a-t-il raté la révolution cartographique ? », in T. MARTIN and M. VIROL (dirs.),

Vauban, architecte de la modernité ?, Les cahiers de la MSHE Ledoux, Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, p. 234-261.

D’ORGEIX, E. (1998), « Eclosion et mise en place d’une littérature spécialisée enseignant les règles du dessin militaire

à l’usage des ingénieurs royaux à la fin du XVIIe siècle et au début du XVIIIe siècle », in Cahiers du Centre d’études d’histoire de la Défense, cahier n° 6, Paris, ADDIM, p. 57-76.

D’ORGEIX, E.

(1999), « Les atlas militaires manuscrits de la première moitié du XVIIe siècle », in C. BOUSQUET-

BRESSOLIER

(dir.), Le paysage des cartes. Genèse d’une codification, Paris, Musée des plans-reliefs, p. 29-48.

D’ORGEIX, E. (2007), « La boussole du pouvoir : atlas, cartes et plans militaires au temps de Vauban », in E. D’ORGEIX , V. SANGER, M. VIROL and I. WARMOES, Vauban, la pierre et la plume, Paris / Luxembourg, Editions du patrimoine

/ Gérard Klopp, p. 83-92.

WARMOES, I.

(2007a), « Vauban et la structuration du corps des ingénieurs du roi », in E. D’ORGEIX , V. SANGER, M.

VIROL and I. WARMOES, Vauban, la pierre et la plume, Paris / Luxembourg, Editions du patrimoine / Gérard Klopp,

p. 71-82.

WARMOES, I.

(2007b), « Un instrument de cartographie particulier : la collection des plans en relief de Louis XIV »,

in E. D’ORGEIX , V. SANGER, M. VIROL and I. WARMOES, Vauban, la pierre et la plume, Paris / Luxembourg, Editions du patrimoine / Gérard Klopp, p. 93-106.

WARMOES, I.

(2012), Le musée des Plans-Reliefs, collection des Guides thématiques du CMN, Paris, Editions du

Patrimoine.

Back to Contents

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13 The Engineer, the Royal Academies, and the Drawing of Maps and Plans in France in the Early Modern Period EMILIE D’ORGEIX1 Université Bordeaux-Montaigne Translation: CHRISOULA PETRIDIS

ABSTRACT

In France, the production of maps and plans by military engineers was often considered a technical activity technique obeying set graphic codes established beginning in the late seventeenth century. Adopting a more nuanced point of view, this article postulates that, in the context of the «court society» established by Louis XIV, military drawing, like all artistic production, conformed to the theoretical debates carried out in the various royal academies. Examining, chapter by chapter, the various drawing manuals for engineers published between 1680 and 1750, this article aims to remind us how much military drawing was, on this account, a «courtierly art» that quickly adapted to the concepts, sometimes subjective, of propriety, bienséance and good taste applied by the Académie Royale de Peinture.

KEYWORDS

Drawing, military engineers, codification, royal academies, France, court society, seventeenth century, eighteenth century.

315

FIG. 1

JEAN MARTELLIER

[Plan du Boulonnais], 1602. British Library, Londres, Add. MS 21117, fol. 8.

The maps and plans produced by military engineers are often considered reliable normative documents that may be used, practically unfiltered, to document historical studies.

While the history of cartography has been enriched by the contributions of cultural and social history, shedding light on how drawing is above all a tool for visual persuasion, the field of military architecture has, on the other hand, remained largely impervious to the Anglo-American social studies trend of the late 1970s2. There are still a great many studies based on the methodical sedimentation of maps and plans by military engineers that do not examine in detail the contexts of commissioning and construction. That is to forget that military architectural drawing in the modern period, like other artistic forms, obeyed the strict norms decreed by the monarchic state. In this regard, Norbert Elias’s book The Court Society3, published nearly a century ago, still contributes to our understanding of drawing practices through the prism of Ancien Régime social codes. The rhetoric of military drawing was not free of the diktats of «courtierly» practices or from the style of the period. In addition to its utilitarian vocation, it is a document in which the visually seductive element often rivals the great amount of information that it conveys. As Henri Gautier de Nîmes noted in 1687: «All endeavour to please at court, by presenting a few new drawings [to the king], which always appear more or less beautiful, according to whether they more or less approach the originals through the medium of wash»4.

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The study of the elements that «adorn» the plans – frames, cartouches, roses, scales, string courses and vignettes – are thus invaluable for understanding both the context in which the works were produced and their status. Although the boundary between working document and presentation drawing fluctuated during the Ancien Régime – the former were often FIG. 2 Title cartouche, «Plan d’Ypres», in the unsigned Recueil des incorporated into panegyric or dedplans de places fortes de Flandre et de Picardie, Artois et Hainault, c. icatory atlases – the latter were 1670. Service historique de la Marine, Vincennes, Atlas 168, fol. 8. rarely used to conduct on-site supervision of buildings and sites.

Produced for a selected audience – king, princes, ministers and patrons – they aimed to influence positively the choice of works proposed by the engineers. For this reason, maximum attention was paid to their decoration. This was stressed by, once again, Gautier de Nîmes: «A drawing is no sooner finished than one strives to decorate it with a border or a fine cartouche. If it is a work that must be presented to some important person, you will add his coat of arms beneath it [...] and the colours will shine as much as possible. If inscriptions explaining the content of the work must be made on it, one should avoid making them bare, that is, not surrounded by some cartouches or some drawings of scrolls in the form of paper, ribbon or rugs...».

The frames used in the first decade of the seventeenth century thus imitate the decorations inspired by Hungarian leatherwork made fashionable by Henri IV [FIG. 1]. Putti and allegorical figures were frequent during the first part of the reign of Louis XIV, then replaced by rococo decoration during the Regency [FIG. 2]. This apparent freedom of composition should, however, be qualified in the light of a series of books published between 1680 and 1750. At the same time as Instructions pour les ingénieurs et dessineurs written

by Vauban in the 1680s5, the publication of civil and military architecture drawing manuals increasingly provided a framework for the graphic work of the engineers. Their authors, Henri Gautier de Nîmes, Nicolas Buchotte and Louis Charles Dupain de Montesson – all three of them military engineers – defined a set of rules governing the choice of the materials, techniques and colours to be used for maps and plans as well as their spatial organisation. While their work contributed to establishing the fixed codes of drawing, they also illustrated the complexity of the professional positioning at play.

Beyond a simple demarcation of graphic practices, they invite fresh consideration of the establishment of the academic codes of drawing in France during the reign of Louis XIV in the light of the creation of royal academies. The implementation of military drawing in France was not only uniquely envisaged as a means of communication and exchange

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between engineers but also as a tool for valorisation given the rising importance of the professions supported by the founding of the royal academies, including the royal painters, sculptors and architects.

HENRI GAUTIER DE NÎMES: IN THE WAKE OF THE ACADÉMIE ROYALE D’ARCHITECTURE

On the eve of the Nine Years’ War, Henri Gautier de Nîmes (1666-1737), a Huguenot engineer active in Languedoc, was the first to write a book, entitled L’art de laver ou la nouvelle manière de peindre sur le papier, that was in line with the recent founding of the Académie Royale d’Architecture (1671)6 [FIG. 3]. This early work was strongly influenced by Des principes de l’architecture (1676)7 by the architect and academician André Félibien (1619-1695), and – although it was rather impersonal – it has the merit of illustrating the complex relationship between architectural drawing and painting [FIG. 4].

Like Félibien, whose third book was entitled De la peinture, Gautier defined the architectural wash drawing in accordance with its relationship to painting: «Painting is a jealous mistress who cannot endure being neglected and reserves all her favours for those who most devote themselves to cultivating her; this could be applied to the art of applying wash to plans, which is a type of painting [...] when one is a master of this art the coloured lines form a whole whose harmony is no less agreeable to the sight than a painting, in which the disposition of the light, the shade and the passions of the soul are expressed as fully as possible» (preface).

His treatise mainly focused on wash and colouring techniques for military architectural plans. In it, Gautier firstly writes about the making of conventional pigments for washes using plants, as well as their modes of application. After a brief introduction on the various types of paint and painting – oil, distemper, fresco, miniature, on glass, on enamel, with coloured pencils, on silk and illumination – he addresses the art of the architectural wash drawing of which he gives the following definition: «The drawings of all works planned, or of those that have already been built, that one sends to court, are usually washed. And, the proposed works are distinguished by different colours, which joined together each in its place make up a very agreeable shade, and indicate each part of the drawing. Because after the drawing finds itself traced on paper in the form of black lines drawn with a ruler the spaces should be coloured in the way that most resembles the true likeness of the work. All these colours ground separately, with gum water, set down in these spaces with a brush, the most delicately possible, and finished with another brush without colour, form what is called a wash» (p. 4).

In contrast with the watercolour, which used the same pigments but which is built up using several touches, the wash, applied uniformly to the plans, indicates each part

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HENRI GAUTIER. Title page, L’art de laver ou la nouvelle manière de peindre sur le papier, suivant le coloris des desseins qu’on envoie à la cour, Brussels, François Poppens, 1703 Edition.

FIG. 3

FIG. 4 ANDRÉ FÉLIBIEN. Title page, Des principes de l’architecture, de la sculpture, de la peinture, Paris, Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1676. Bibliothèque de L’INHA, Doucet coll., Paris.

of the drawing. The gum water (a blend of water and gum arabic) is dissolved in order to create a binder that makes the washes adhere. When gradations had to be indicated, a brush full of gum water served to wash out the drawing and create areas that are either darker or lighter.

Gautier then presents the principal pigment-making techniques. He explains how to make «a very clean fine blue wash in the place of ultramarine» for which one must «gather in summer a large quantity of cornflowers that come from the wheatfields, according to the quantity of pigment that you would like to make, take fine alum powder, and water from a fountain, pour this water in a marble mortar with flowers and boil it [...]» (p. 61). He also describes the making of drawing equipment useful «in the country and on the drafting table», which comprises «a case containing pots filled with colours and a writing case in which there will be a folding square that will serve as a ruler, quills, a pen knife, filled pencil holder, a small file, three or four brushes with a single handle [...]» (p. 69). Finally, in a chapter entitled «La manière de se servir des couleurs dans les godets», he explains the organisation and positioning of a drafting table by taking into account the orientation of the daylight: «One thus positions oneself in front of a table that must receive light from only the left side from your position. On this table should be arranged all the pots and at the end should be a glass half-full of water above the middle of which will be your two brushes [...]» (p. 70). The second part of his work is dedi-

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cated to drawing codes and colours. He addresses the manner of applying wash to highlight plans, sections and elevations, and of placing borders and frames. Finally, he concludes with a chapter containing an alphabetical summary of the art of washes for plans to be sent to court.

Ten years later, Gautier reformulated his book in the form of a dictionary. Entitled L’art de dessiner proprement les plans, profils, élévations géométrales et perspective (1697), it contains each of the entries in his first publication reorganised in alphabetical order. This volume also contains several wordings specific to the painting treatises of the Académie Royale d’Architecture8. His descriptions thus respected the bienséance and conventions of late seventeenth century courtly drawings. He was particularly fond of bizarrerie and grâce. Thus, when he described the drawing of trees, he pointed out: «that if one does not express the roundness of a tree, it will have no grace at all [...]» (p. 14). As for the depiction of morning frost, he advises that it be «tenderly [drawn] with Indian ink» (p. 103). He also hopes that engineers learn to «practise the fine art of feuiller» – that of «neatly drawing the leaves on the trees [...]». He dwells on subtle gradations such as the various tonalities of the sky – «clear sky», «cloudy sky» and «night sky» – or country landscapes such as «the fields before the harvest», «the trees in the distance» and «stagnant water» (p. 103). He even gives a useful definition of how to render the mouths of soldiers killed in combat: «Mouth: is washed with a layer of vermilion and is shaded with carmine; if it is open, is painted in strokes of bistre and carmine. That of a corpse is washed in lacquer and shaded with bistre» (p. 48). In all his definitions, Gautier focuses on two aspects of drawing: the proper use of colours and the various conventions for representing nature on plans (trees, plants and bushes). He gives no advice on the spatial organisation of plans, and his technical recommendations on the drawing of fortifications are often rather vague.

Thus, for the definition of «demi-lune», he advises only «to draw and wash [the structure] according to the colours of the stronghold» (p. 82). In the final analysis, despite a few recommendations concerning the making of colours, accuracy and bienséance constitute the key words of Gautier’s treatises. His remark concerning the drawing of outlines could thus be applied to the whole of his work: «The outlines must be of the utmost precision, otherwise a drawing is what one may call inaccurate, which is the greatest fault for which a painter can be reproached, however lovely the colour scheme» (p. 72).

His work is thus important because it does not aim to replace engineers’ training in the field, but enables them to complete and refine their projects during the final phases of work «on the drafting table». His two books, published during a period when the profession of military engineer was threatened by the academic institutionalisation of royal architects, are interesting in more than one respect. While they constitute a practical manual for engineers, they should also be considered part of a wider attempt to integrate civil and military architectural drawing into the «Republic of the Arts». In this sense, Gautier’s attention to the handling of composition, landscape and anatomy is part and parcel of a precise determination to valorise technical drawing as an academic practice.

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LES RÈGLES DU DESSIN ET DU LAVIS BY NICOLAS BUCHOTTE

Two decades later, the engineer Nicolas Buchotte published Les règles du dessin et du lavis (1722)9. This practical manual summarises all the graphic rules of military drawing as they should be applied by military engineers. Basing himself on the general guidelines expressed by Vauban in Le directeur général des fortifications10 in 1685, Buchotte conventionally defined the scope of military and civil drawing. This rigorous and precise treatise arrived just at the right time to regulate the still badly assimilated graphic codes.

Despite Gautier’s treatise, no work of reference had yet been published. Graphic conventions were usually hawked about from building site to building site and taught according to the very different backgrounds of the engineers. In his preface, Buchotte clearly sets out both the urgent need for the standardisation of drawings by architects and engineers, as well as the flaws in the contemporary training system: «The rules and maxims, which we intend to teach in this treatise [...] are absolutely necessary, for I have observed that of all the pupils of the late M. de la Boissière fils, who only taught the practice of drawing, those who did not have the theory did not find themselves able [...] to produce the original of a drawing, not knowing whether a thick line or a fine one was required, a strong or weak colour [...] thus, they only know how to copy drawings, and if these drawings were badly understood they would copy them as they understood them, which we shall attempt to remedy by the rules and maxims that we will set out in this treatise» (preface).

His manual methodically refers to all the principles of military and civil drawing and follows Vauban’s instructions: «Scales that suited the plans, sections, profiles, facades, elevations and levels, which are the same as those that M. le Maréchal de Vauban determined for the drawings to be sent to the court [...]» (p. 48).

The plan adopted by Buchotte brought together all the phases in the conception of the military drawing. In the first part of his book, he deals with colour, the shades of wash to be used, their preparation and their codified use in military and civil architecture. In the second, he examines the codes of graphic representation used in civil and military architecture as well as in shading. Plate VII of the second part thus illustrates the various conventions used in the drawing of buildings. The window and door openings are in black wash, and the way the roofs should be given a graded wash can be immediately grasped.

Also in this section are several explanatory plates that set out the specific rules for the drawing of bastions in military architecture. The representation of relief is explained and it contains the model composition of a military drawing, a floor plan and an elevation, all accompanied by a scale and framed by a double line. The third part concerns the concepts of layout and good taste in the decoration of plans. Finally, like Gautier de Nîmes, Buchotte organised all his definitions in alphabetical order in a final section. While they formed the main body of Gautier’s treatise, in Buchotte’s book, they were classified in an index that referred back to the different chapters. All the aspects of technical drawing are thus methodically addressed in a way that leaves the military engineer with no doubt

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as to the conventional representations of military and civil architecture. The definition of «scales» thus sums up all the mentions made in the main body of the book: «Scales of the drawings. That they should be handled in the simplest of styles, 52, 127. Of those appropriate to each space of the drawing, [page] 48 ff. That they must have an exact relationship with the folding square, 51. How to draw them. That it would be fitting to have them all engraved on a copper or horn blade, 53. To whom to turn to have them precisely drawn and divided, 54. Of the necessity to place a scale at the bottom of each map or battle or siege plan, 165.»

Buchotte’s book is by far the most complete of his era and part of a general movement to codify military drawing. It is also the most practical since, aware of the geographical remoteness of certain engineers, he gives advice for the production of makeshift instruments and colours at little cost. Thus, in the first part, he explains how to organise a drafting room, construct a drafting table, place the pots of paint and use various instruments «when it is a question of drawing detailed plans of the work of civil structure and buildings, as well as their sections, profiles and elevations, and facades [...] one could use the plane table with the set square» (sect. 2) [FIG. 5]. A description of the wood to use follows – «soft as applewood, pearwood and walnut» – as does a practical explanation of how to produce these instruments. Buchotte, like Gautier, also includes several recipes for how to make good colours. To make bistre, he suggests «taking chimney soot, the most gleaming possible, grinding it and infusing it in water, over hot ash so that the solution is rather high in colour, and filtering it [...]» (sect.

3). To make sap green, he recommends taking «the seed of very ripe buckthorn and pounding it in a marble mortar; then expressing the juice through cheesecloth and leaving it to dry in a bladder» (sect. 4). The empiricism of these general methods of learning and

Plate from NICOLAS BUCHOTTE, Les règles du dessin et du lavis, Paris, Claude Jombert, 1722, pl. 22.

FIG. 5

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making is not, moreover, surprising for the period. In the eighteenth century, the implementation of a theory of drawing was still accompanied a body of knowledge that was still very close to the techniques taught by craftsmen’s guilds11. Buchotte thus explains how to make a funnel by using a «drinking glass»: «If one does not have a glass funnel, one could make one with a common drinking glass, in the shape of a cone, not of Swiss breeches, by removing the stem, so that it is pierced, which is easy to do, by putting a large sulphur wick around the narrowest part of the glass, which will be set alight, and when this wick is alight, one will dip the stem of the glass in cold water up to the place of the sulphur wick, and it will not fail to break cleanly, as one desires [...]» (sect. 3).

The success of Buchotte’s book, reprinted three times in the eighteenth century and translated into Italian and German, was unequalled. It remained a major reference work until the early nineteenth century. Claude Mathieu Delagardette, who published a treatise entitled Nouvelles règles pour la pratique du dessin et du lavis in 1803, although openly repudiating his predecessor’s book12, draws heavily on Buchotte’s13.

DUPAIN DE MONTESSON: FROM LA SCIENCE DES OMBRES TO L’ART DE LEVER LES PLANS

While Buchotte’s book remained the principal manual used by engineers throughout the eighteenth century, a third engineer, Louis Charles Dupain de Montesson (1715-c. 1795) published two supplementary volumes concerning the techniques of architectural drawing in the mid-eighteenth century. He is considered a later author in the context of this paper since his manuals were contemporary with the founding of the École du Génie de Mézières in 1748. He nevertheless belongs to the same current as Nicolas Buchotte whose book he cites on several occasions14.

His first book, La science des ombres par rapport au dessin avec le dessinateur (1750)15, deals with «sound principles for knowing the place, type, form and intensity of the shading according to the various things that one must represent» (preface). This in-depth work nevertheless includes an appendix of thirty or so pages entitled «Le dessinateur au cabinet et à l’armée» whose aim is to «train draughtsmen ready to follow, in the army, the general officers» (foreword). Dupain stresses that his text «may also serve to provide drawing practice for those who intend to become engineers». «It is not enough for the former [the draughtsmen ready to follow the army] especially to know how to draw plans and maps and to have attempted to handle a paintbrush, they must also know the colours upon which it has been agreed to draw the various parts of a fortification, a landscape, etc.» This appendix sets out, clearly and concisely, all of the drawing codes. Apart from the third section, which deals with the manner of representing the movements of battalions and armies (according to geometric figures), the book covers the representation of plans of landscapes and fortifications:

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FIG. 6 Plate from LOUIS CHARLES DUPAIN DE MONTESSON, « Le dessinateur au Cabinet et à l’Armée », La science des ombres par rapport au dessin avec le dessinateur au cabinet et à l’armée, Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1750 and Nuremberg, Weigel, 1762.

«The first [part] teaches how to distinguish, using the colours authorised by custom, all the built or planned military architecture structures to be drafted [...] The second shows how to draft the landscape that surrounds a space, or that is found on a map [...] In the third is shown how to depict the camp of an army, its movements and that of its artillery [...] Finally, the fourth, teaches how to pick and how to recognise a drawing from a tracing and how to copy, draw a plan or a map, from large to small or from small to large [...]».

The first part gives lessons in what shades to use. Thus, the dry ditches should be washed in gamboge, the moats drenched in watercolours, the block of buildings in carmine and the proposed work in yellow [FIG. 6]. The second chapter contains in alphabetical dictionary form aesthetic and academic advice useful for the «correct» composition of landscapes and rustic architecture, and the representation of armies. In his definition of how to draw roads, Dupain explains that they «are indicated by small hachures made on the sides or, even better, represented by double lines to be placed on either side [...]» (book 2, «Chaussées»). He also suggests the same type of detail for the imitation of sand: «To represent the sand found on seashores and river banks or that forms an island, one makes a blend of carmine and gamboge [...] and if the drawing must be refined, one makes on this reddish-brown shade a great many small round dots that decrease in number the farther away they are from the water». A small explanatory supplement on the «manner of blending the colours used in drawings» concludes the book.

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Dupain’s second, more technical, publication, L’art de lever les plans de tout ce qui a rapport à la guerre et à l’architecture civile et champêtre16, illustrates another facet of his professional skills. Published in 1763, it consists mainly of mathematical tables, intended for cartographers, used for calculating distances in relation to the compass meridian lines of military topographic maps. Dupain does not address the practice of drawing useful in the presentation of maps; his book was used a more of a reference for evaluating the various fixed points to chose for the construction of fortifications.

Dupain’s treatise, like those by Gautier, is important for comprehending the evolution of the representation of nature and of the topographical survey by military engineers in the eighteenth century. It corresponds to the institutionalisation of drawing lessons for military engineers and to the creation of a drafting studio, which made the practical manuals in engineers’ satchels less essential. The following volumes would be directly incorporated into the education of military engineers, especially at the École du Génie de Mézières. Beyond the simple practical definitions, the importance of these authors should not be underestimated or reduced to a simple corporate determination to unify graphic codes. Much more than that, an entire professional debate may be perceived through the reading of these technical statements. It was essentially through the institution of this new graphic rhetoric that the corps of military engineers found its cohesion and, by extension, that of state power was affirmed. The dominant themes, which were not set out clearly but implied, recognised a «family resemblance» in the engineers’ plans. The most significant were the imitation of nature and the adoption of good taste. Both concepts would progressively govern the laws of military and civil architectural drawing much more strongly than the chromatic codes. While no chapter is explicitly dedicated to them, their influence is discernible in the definitions and discourses. Thus, Nicolas Buchotte, although he does not mention the definition of nature and good taste, openly states it in his preface: «The theory [...] does not only depend on certain rules, some of which are natural and the others conventional, without which it is impossible to draw in good taste and make oneself understood»17.

The terms of natural effects were indissociable, during the classical period, from those of bienséance and good taste. These two notions concern both the conceptual practice of architecture and its representation on paper. As mentioned above, the concept of nature in treatises on military drawing was closely related to the publication of theoretical treatises on civil architecture promoting concepts of good taste and bienséance. For the graphic modes of the projects reflect the architectural spirit of the era as much as their typological form. Apart from the classic trilogy – plan-section-perspective – established during the Renaissance, architects and engineers instilled the academic values imposed through drawing. Graphic techniques and principles were created in turn; these, were comprehensible as much through the colours and the supports as through «the rational organisation of plans». Thus the concepts of regularity and symmetry, leitmotifs of classical architecture, are also found in the organisational principles of plans. While in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the military engineer still had great liberty to choose the composition, agréments and embellishments of his plans, the new concepts of «good taste» disseminated by the Académie Royale d’Architecture increasingly provided

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guidelines for the modes of representation. The teaching of good taste comprised an important part of the education of the royal architects18. Its most general definition, according to the universal dictionary of Antoine Furetière, consists of «forming the most perfect idea of things that one can and following it»19. It thus represents the principal tool for the codification of architecture underpinning the new norms of planning and representation. These various formulations say a lot about the spirit in which good taste was applied in the context of civil architecture. In fact, it was a question of following the most perfect idea and the je-ne-sais-quoi-qui-plaît advocated by the members of the various royal academies (painting-sculpture-architecture). In general, good taste in military architectural drawings would adopt the same principle as that in civil architecture. The banishment of excessive ornamentation, which corresponds to the pursuit of simplicity and balance specific to good taste, is also discernible in military art. Writing about fortification and its ornamentation, Félibien clearly defines this pursuit of simplicity: «When one considers Fortification part of architecture in general, it is called military architecture and it differs mainly from civil architecture in that the ultimate aim is to enrich its buildings with ornaments, while military architecture, without thinking at all about ornaments, does its utmost to make walls strong and capable of resisting [...]»20.

Buchotte also defined many rules, apparently arbitrary, that separate the practices of drawing according to good or bad taste: «If the mountains [...] are not drawn with good taste, they do not have an effect, or only have one that is disagreeable to sight [...]» (preface). Similarly, he warns certain draughtsmen against habits deemed to be faulty and gives examples to avoid: «I cannot keep quiet about the bad taste of some draughtsmen with regards to roads [...] this taste is worthless and not natural [...]» (p. 125). Generally speaking, propriety and the establishment of good taste support the academic imitation of nature. Whatever he wanted to represent henceforth, the military engineer was constrained by specific graphic obligations that depended on these new conventions.

The study of these ways of conceiving the imitation of nature and good taste stresses the conventional academicism of the discourse concerning the establishment of a theory of military architectural drawing. Yet the themes developed only represent the underlying discourse of authors during the classical period. Aware of the issues that connected them to debates on civil architecture, all had nevertheless attempted to create a vocabulary and an aesthetic specific to military architecture. In his treatise Les pratiques du Sieur Fabre sur l’ordre et règle de fortifier [...], the engineer Jean Fabre notes both the correlation that exists between the military and civil vocabulary, and the existence of specifically military terms: «Plenty of other terms invented, adorned and polished in the ease of civil architecture, just as the beauties of his works adapt rather well it seems to me to the discourse of the military and make it not in the slightest more familiar and intelligible, especially as it also contains those of his own, proud, imperious, haughty and extraordinary, like the nature of its subject [...]»21.

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In L’art de laver [...], Henri Gautier also notes the importance of creating a specific codification of drawings for soldiers, engineers and architects. These considerations, he says: «made me gradually undertake to reconcile myself to giving the public an idea of an art, which appears to be a type of chaos and which I put in such a way as to be intelligent and useful to all. I believe that no one has dealt with it before me, although there are plenty of people who have perfectly mastered it»22.

The work of these authors of treatises on drawing, born of a determination to explain the art of military and civil drawing and to delimit its fields of application, has largely remained in obscurity. Historical studies have little used the vast information potential of these works generally thought technical. However, they perfectly reveal the complex position of the corps of military engineers during the classical period. Concerned with distinguishing themselves from practitioners of civil architecture, they created strict rules for their specific use that, however, are permeated by a classical ideology connecting them to contemporary academic debates. The early attempt by Pierre Bourdin in his Traité de fortification (1655) to create – following the example of civil architecture – French, Italian and German military architectural orders is significant in this respect23.

Whatever the case, these authors’ fading into oblivion is unjustified. Gautier de Nîmes had got it right when he observed in the preface of his treatise that an author «must always expect less to reign in the Republic of Letters than to triumph in the Field of Mars».

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NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

emilie.dorgeix@u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr See in particular the seminal text by HARLEY, 1998, p. 277-312.

ELIAS, 1974.

GAUTIER DE NÎMES, 1687.

VAUBAN, 1714.

GAUTIER DE NÎMES, 1687, préface.

FÉLIBIEN, 1676.

André Félibien, justifies, moreover, the use of such vocabulary in his preface: «One will find several words that have been used, that are not in ordinary usage, such as for example the word tenderness, which is only used morally to express the feelings of the heart: yet among the painters and sculptors, this word is the opposite of harshness and it is said that a picture is painted with much tenderness [...] and I don’t even think that we can blame this manner of speaking, although it is extraordinary, since it contains nothing uncouth, and which does not express well enough what one wants to say». FÉLIBIEN, 1676.

BUCHOTTE, 1722.

VAUBAN, 1685.

Marianne Roland-Michel had already noted the empiricism of the general methods of teaching drawing: «While a theory of drawing, its principle and its role forms gradually, it is surprising to note despite everything that in the eighteenth century, the discourse marked by the evaluation of thought was inevitably accompanied by precepts that were sometimes closer to cookery recipes than to practical lessons». ROLAND-MICHEL, 1987, p. 13.

DELAGARDETTE, 1803.

Ibid., preface. «For a long time, the many imperfections in Buchotte’s Règles du dessin & du Lavis meant that it was desirable that a volume be published that fulfils the same goal and that contains the methods adopted since the last edition of its book». « On avertit ceux qui auront besoin d’apprendre à ce servir du pinceau et à en exprimer avec des couleurs des différentes choses [...] qu’ils pourront pour cet effet consulter notre ouvrage [...] et du lavis par Mr BUCHOTTE, qu’ils trouveront chez le même libraire [...] ». [«We inform those who will need to learn how to use a brush and draw various things in colour [...] that they may consult our publication [...] and M. Buchotte on wash, which they will find at the same bookseller’s»]. DUPAIN DE MONTESSON, 1750, p 157.

Ibid.

DUPAIN DE MONTESSON, 1763.

BUCHOTTE, 1722, preface.

On the good taste in civil architecture during the classical period, see SZAMBIEN, 1986.

FURETIÈRE, 1691, vol. 1, definition: Bon-goût.

FÉLIBIEN, 1676, chapter XIII, p. 63.

FABRE, 1629. Explanations in alphabetical order of the terms in this book, p. 130.

GAUTIER DE NÎMES, 1687, preface.

BOURDIN, 1655.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOURDIN, P. (1655), L’architecture militaire ou l’art de fortifier les places régulières et irrégulières, Paris, Guillaume Be-

nard.

BUCHOTTE, N. (1722),

Les règles du dessin et du lavis pour les plans particuliers des ouvrages & des bâtimens, & pour

leurs coupes, profils, élévations & façades, tant de l’architecture militaire que civile, Paris, Claude Jombert.

DELAGARDETTE, C. M. (1803), Nouvelles règles pour la pratique du dessin et du lavis de l’architecture civile et militaire,

Paris, Barrois l’aîné & fils.

DUPAIN DE MONTESSON, L. C. (1750),

La science des ombres par rapport au dessin avec le dessinateur au cabinet et

à l’armée, Paris, chez Charles-Antoine Jombert.

DUPAIN DE MONTESSON, L. C. (1763),

L’art de lever les plans de tout ce qui a rapport à la guerre, & à l’architecture

civile & champêtre, Paris, Charles-Antoine Jombert.

ELIAS, N.

(1974), La société de cour, Paris, Calmann-Levy (first French edition).

FABRE, J. (1629),

Les practiques du Sieur Fabre sur l’ordre et règle de fortifier, garder, attaquer et deffendre les places,

Paris, Samuel Thiboust.

FÉLIBIEN, A. (1676), Des principes de l’architecture, de la sculpture, de la peinture, et des autres arts qui en dépendent.

Avec un dictionnaire des termes propres à chacun de ces arts, Paris, Jean-Baptiste Coignard.

FURETIÈRE, A. (1691),

Dictionnaire universel, Paris.

GAUTIER DE NÎMES, H.

(1687), L’art de laver ou nouvelles manières de peindre sur le papier suivant le coloris des

dessins qu’on envoye à la cour, Lyon, Thomas Amaulry.

HARLEY, J. B. (1998), « Maps, knowledge, and power », in D. COSGROVE and S. DANIELS, The iconography of landscape

(eds.), Cambridge, University of Cambridge Press, p. 277-312.

ROLAND-MICHEL, M. (1987), SZAMBIEN, W.

Le dessin français au XVIIIe siècle, Paris.

(1986), Symétrie. Goût. Caractère. Théorie et terminologie de l’architecture à l’âge classique. 1500-

1800, Paris, Picard.

VAUBAN

(1685), Le Directeur général des fortifications, The Hague, Henri van Bulderen.

VAUBAN

(1714), Instruction pour les ingénieurs et dessineurs qui lèvent les plans des places du Roy ou des cartes,

Paris, Imprimerie Royale. [Text written in 1680 and published posthumously].

Back to Contents

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14 «Looking at the World on Two Sheets of Paper»: the Image of the Orb and Mathematics in the Education of Prince Philip III MARGARITA-ANA VÁZQUEZ-MANASSERO1 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Translation: BÁRBARA RUIZ-BEJARANO

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to analyze an aspect of the courtly education of Prince Philip III on which historiography has put scarce emphasis: the role played by mathematics and other disciplines which, in the late sixteenth century, were linked to, namely, arithmetic, geometry and cosmography, the study of which required a knowledge of drawing and the depiction of the world as essential skills. The analysis has primarily been articulated around the study of those tutors in charge of the Prince’s scientific education. His preceptor, García de Loaysa, reveals himself as a humanist, whose profile highlights his erudition in science. Moreover, the future Philip III had an illustrious mathematics tutor, Juan Bautista Labaña, and a geometry tutor, Jehan Lhermite. The Prince built a close relationship with both men that lasted until the twilight of his days. These facts clearly show that the knowledge about the learning stage of Prince Philip III and his interests towards scientific disciplines becomes essential for a better understanding of his future reign.

KEYWORDS

Education of princes, King Philip III of Spain, scientific knowledge, preceptor of the Prince, García de Loaysa, Juan Bautista Labaña, Jehan Lhermite.

331

In a rare treatise on emperors, kings and princes who had been devoted to writing and had sponsored the publication of books, Baltasar Porreño mentions Philip II in the following terms: «Sir Philip, the second of his name, called the Prudent, was to a great extent a man inclined to sciences, and excelled above other outstanding men in these [...] he was so prominent in geometry or architecture, whether in their specific study, or in the long exercise of building, or in themselves, or for all these reasons altogether, that he got to know the best of this art, with so much excellence and merit, as the most illustrious authors» 2.

The study of the role played by Philip II, not only as a patron of arts, but also as the promoter of important scientific endeavours, is a fact which, as has become evident, was recognized in his own period and praised by his contemporaries. The evident preference and interest in scientific knowledge demonstrated by Philip II has led us to the hypothesis formulated in this study, where an unprecedented aspect of the courtly education of Philip III is presented: the role of mathematics and related disciplines in the sixteenth century – arithmetic, geometry and cosmography –, as well as learning the art of drawing and the knowledge of the image of the orb – considered the visual concretions of those sciences – in the education of the young Prince, who was called to inherit and rule a vast empire, on which the sun never set.

REFERENCES TO THE SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION OF PHILIP III IN THE CONTEMPORARY SOURCES AND HISTORIOGRAPHY

One of the most frequently – or even the most – quoted sources in the Modern period, in the scarce studies dedicated to the education of the future Philip III3 [FIG. 1] is the History of various events («Historia de varios sucesos») by Fray Jerónimo de Sepúlveda, El Tuerto4. The author and the History compiled in this manuscript have been considered by contemporary historiography as a testimony of exceptional importance in order to know the training received by the young Prince during the period mentioned. In this sense, Sepúlveda offers information about the studies and occupations of the Prince, with references mainly to horsemanship, shooting with harquebus, hunting practice and preferences, with a brief reference to the study of grammar5. However, there is no mention in this source of his training in mathematics and other related disciplines, which is the purpose of this analysis.

However, a less recurring source – we could even say, omitted – in the studies related to the topic, is the History of the King of Spain Philip III, by Matías de Novoa6. This author offers an abundance of detail about the Prince’s abilities and the central role played by the study of mathematics, as well as the knowledge of the image of the orb, which he was destined to govern and preserve. After introducing how the Prince started his studies of letters, French and Italian, and the reading of exemplary stories, this «observer of the events of his time», states:

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JUSTUS TIEL. Allegory of the Education of Philip III, ca.

1590, oil on canvas, 158 x 105 cm.

Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado (P01846).

FIG. 1

«he proceeded with care and attention the noble study of cosmography in the two books of Gerardo and Abraham Ortelius, where he learnt thoroughly the union and division between kingdoms and provinces with each other, the location of cities, rites and traditions, rivers, mounts, bays, straits, other islands, ports, coves, along the lines and regions of navigation, heights, sandbanks, northern references and stars: compensating thus his lack of experience, looking at the world on two sheets of paper; understanding time, without which it is not possible to rule one’s own nation, let alone those of others; where it is so necessary to be alert to the movements of people, to build navies, to gather armies, to lead them through difficult passages, without being seen or sensed by the enemies; to fortify cities, to build them, because sometimes it is not intelligent to leave everything to a Minister, that he becomes more alert when he knows the Prince is able and knowledgeable in matters of navigation. He would give his opinion upon any building plan, and he was admired by those who listened to him [...]»7.

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From these words by Matías de Novoa we can infer the importance of cosmography in the Prince’s pedagogical programme, pointing at one of the works which will become a «study manual», the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Abraham Ortelius. It is also interesting to note the importance given to the «image of the orb» and the maps, as they were visual models intended to compensate for the lack of experience of the terrain. They will be used by the Prince to get to know the configuration of his kingdoms, cities and territories.

Also interesting is the testimony offered on the evident interest and erudition in design and architecture.

His translation from Tuscan to Castillian of the Canon of the Five orders of Architecture («Regla de los cinco órdenes de arquitectura») by Vignola, Patricio Cajés8, considered by historiography as his drawing master, includes an interesting reference in the dedication, addressed to the future Philip III, connected with the Prince’s interest in architecture and drawing. In this dedication, Cajés mentions the importance and advantage of a knowledge of the noble science of architecture – «both political and military» – for those who govern states and kingdoms. Then, the architect explains that the young Prince «as a true son to his father, has started already to prove his desire to imitate his heroic virtues, and in particular, it is evident that H.M. has an interest for one of the foundations of architecture, which, according to Vitruvius, is drawing, so I have determined to address Vignola’s book to H.M» 9.

The last of the contemporary sources mentioning the Prince’s education drafts a less complimentary picture of the abilities of Philip II’s son, one which is likely to be nearer reality. Thus, the anonymous compiler of the History by Marquis Virgilio Malvezzi, when addressing the issue of Philip III’s education, explains that despite the efforts made by his guardian («ayo») and his tutor in the Prince’s learning of philosophy and mathematics, the heir would express his preference for horse riding and hunting, and, in view of the scarce result of their efforts, the tutors would have to be contented with just the foundations10.

Therefore, we find a few examples of sources of a praiseworthy nature where the disposition of the future Philip III towards several sciences is exalted, although there are also less commendatory texts on the matter. Nevertheless, the truth is that there was a concern to procure for the Prince a courtly environment which included the knowledge of the scientific disciplines, a concern which becomes apparent if we consider the data exposed in the following lines.

THE COURTLY CIRCLE IN CHARGE OF THE PRINCE’S EDUCATION «I’D RATHER SEE THE PRINCE DEAD THAN TO GIVE HIM BAD PEOPLE TO ACCOMPANY AND SERVE HIM»11.

Most likely, these words said by Emperor Charles V when he set up his heir’s household, or similar ideas, must have been more than present when it was time to do so with the future Philip III. Because such an «essential business» («negocio de tanta monta»), such as the education of the Prince, the «public health of the Kingdoms» («salud pública de los Reynos») was at stake, and, should a mistake have been made in the election of the heir’s tutors, the monarchy could have been driven into ruin.

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Moved by this prudent preoccupation, Philip II would seek advice from the highest ministers in his Court, in order to «appoint the people with the convenient merits to educate a Prince who would be master of such a broad and Catholic monarchy» 12. Finally, after several difficulties, the choice of tutor fell upon the man who had been chaplain and great almoner to Philip II: García de Loaysa Girón.

The Prince’s Tutor: García de Loaysa Girón The appointment of García de Loaysa in 1585 as the Prince’s tutor was not without controversy. After his appointment, there were some who remarked upon his inexperience to carry out a mission of such high responsibility. This was the case of the Bishop of Guadix, Mr. Juan Alonso de Moscoso, who commented to Mateo Vázquez that the tutor «was ignorant of a thousand things», despite acknowledging that Loaysa was «a true servant of our master [...] languages, mathematics, astrology, logic, philosophy, metaphysics, theology from the Complutense»13. This statement, even coming from one of Loaysa’s detractor, points out a knowledge in mathematics and astrology, disciplines of special interest for our analysis, as part of his humanist profile as the Prince’s tutor.

On the other hand, the chroniclers of the period contribute little to understanding García de Loaysa’s knowledge or his pedagogical work in relation to mathematics, cosmography and other disciplines related to the education of Philip III14. Practically all sources present briefly the training of the priest in matter of grammar. However, Antonio de Obregón y Cereceda, in his Discourses on Aristotle’s moral philosophy («Discursos sobre la filosofía moral de Aristóteles»)15 – addressed, precisely, to Prince Philip III, who proposes a dialogue on moral philosophy out of curiosity –, presents an interesting testimony on the matter. In the «Sixth Discourse», a dialogue takes place between the tutor and the Prince on the Aristotelian concept of magnificence. At the end of the lesson, Obregón y Cereceda states the following: «After these words, his Highness got up, and after resting for a while in his chambers, he went into a room where, on some desks, there were some books, a sphere, two globes, and some descriptions and maps, of the disposition of the earth and the sea, and of the places of the Provinces. And there, the tutor, who is prominent in this as in many other things, continued the lesson on mathematics, which is ordinarily taught to the Prince, because such a discipline is necessary, and the occupation in those exercises is excellent, since no other thing prepares the road better for advice upon war and its deeds, than its intelligence»16.

Although Obregón y Cereceda does not name the tutor with whom the Prince Philip III is having this conversation, it would be logical to think that these words could refer to Loaysa. Even though the reference would not be to him, the composition of the place described by Obregón y Cereceda in his work seems clear: the Prince would have to receive lessons in mathematics, considering the unquestionable relevance of this matter in the training of a young Prince; but also it gives a description of the environ-

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ment where this lesson would actually happen, surrounded by instruments, images and descriptions of the orb as a visual materialisation of the theory explained in the lessons.

In this sense, we find an explicit reference to the lessons on scientific matters taught

by Loaysa to the Prince, in the addressing, to Philip III as a king, of the Translation of the books by Gaius Plinius Secundus, of Natural History («Tradvcion de los libros de Caio Plinio Segvndo, de la Historia Natvral») (1599) by Jerónimo de Huerta, physician and philosopher. In the introduction to his work, the licentiate explains that, while translating and annotating those books, he came to know that the Prince enjoyed Pliny’s lesson, with which Loaysa «entertained him occasionally» 17. It is necessary to mention that the Natural History would constitute the first encyclopaedia on nature conceived as such, in 37 books. The knowledge included in it comprised the description of the universe, the world, the human being, the animal and vegetal kingdoms, the pharmacopoeia derived from them, the mineral world, among the most outstanding matters. Besides, Jerónimo de Huerta’s statement on the Prince’s interest in natural history was confirmed by the documents containing the accounting of the Prince’s household. Thus, among the expenses for the Prince’s «guardajoyas», in 1596, we find this entry: «On 10th July 1596 Julio de Junti de Modesti was paid sixty six reals for those paid for an infolio Pliny, which was for his Highness, paper which was bound in S[aint] L[orenzo] at the library’s expense [...]»18.

However, considering the succinct references on the competency of the Prince’s tutor in mathematics, arithmetic or cosmography, collected in the period’s chronicles, it is necessary to resort to other kinds of sources in order to approach these matters and obtain a more precise portrait of Loaysa as a humanist. Doubtlessly, the post-mortem inventory, drafted in 1599, of the tutor’s possessions – among which a vast library is listed19, containing over four thousand volumes20 – is the best testimony of the erudition and the diverse interests of their owner. However, in order to understand the nature and origin of the rich collection gathered by Loaysa towards the end of his days, it is necessary to draw, even roughly, the network of relationships established between the clergyman and prominent scholars, especially from his appointment as the Prince’s tutor. Such connections would explain to a large extent the presence of some specific titles found in his residence in Madrid after his death.

Certainly, his appointment as the Prince’s tutor would give the clergyman a privileged position in the court. In this sense, and in connection with the creation of his library, shortly after this appointment, the printer Christophe Plantin started an epistolary exchange with Loaysa21. Thus, in April 1586, Plantino, following the advice by Father Moflin on Loaysa’s benevolence, writes his first letter to the tutor, requesting his support – together with that of Arias Montano and Gabriel de Zayas – before the king, in order to obtain a certificate licence for the financial obligations related to his printing activities. Had the printer received this mercy, he would show his gratitude to Loaysa with the printing of a dedication22.

However, gaining Loaysa’s favour would be essential in order to defend Plantin’s interests before the king, but, more importantly, it would be a way of accessing the young Prince. Aware of this, Jean Moflin sent Plantin a wooden box with a series of

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presents that he would have to send Loaysa. Among these presents for the Prince’s tutor, Moflin included the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, as well as Jacques Androuet du Cerceau’s treatise on architecture, in French23. In the same consignment, Plantin should include other objects, whose recipient was no other than the Prince himself.

Specifically, these included an equinoctial sundial with a golden node. Moflin sent precise instructions about the instrument to Plantin: he states the instrument is not in good condition, so it would have to be repaired as well as possible by Michel Coignet – mathematician and topographer – with an accompanying note, describing its functioning24.

Plantin’s interest for Loaysa, and by extension for the young heir, would intensify in the following years. On January 26th 1587, the printer writes to Pedro Pantino – famous Hellenist who was in Loaysa’s service at the time – requesting his opinion on a potential edition of Ortelius’s Atlas in its Spanish version, which he would like to dedicate to the Prince, and the preface for the same author’s Thesaurus, which he would like to offer to the heir’s tutor25. Only a day later Plantin’s letter is addressed to the Prince’s tutor where, among other questions, he states his intention to print Ortelius’s26 Theatrum Orbis Terrarum in Spanish as well as his Thesaurus Geographicus, as he had already explained in his letter to Pantino.

Finally, in May 1587, Plantin published the mentioned Thesaurus Geographicus in Antwerp. The dedication, at the express will of the printer, was to Loaysa [FIG. 2], describing the usefulness of the work to help the Prince learn the names of the kingdoms, villages and cities that he will govern. Once the Thesaurus had been published, Plantin’s efforts, in his letters addressed to the Prince’s tutor, were directed at achieving his advice on the possibility of dedicating the Spanish version of Ortelius’s Atlas to the heir of the crown, for the Latin version had been addressed to his father27.

The correspondence between Plantin and Loaysa, and the references to the Prince’s tutor in the letters addressed to Plantin’s circle of acquaintances, such as Pedro Pantino, would continue until the last days of the printer. The letters sent between Madrid and Antwerp have become an essential source for knowing Loaysa’s interest and protection of Plantin’s printing FIG. 2 ABRAHAM ORTELIUS. Dedication to García de Loaysa, preceptor of Prince Philip III, in Thesaurus Geopress. They also reveal the close relationgraphicus, Antwerp, Ex officina Christophori Plantini, ship of the priest from Toledo with a num1587, p. 2.

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FIG. 3 JUSTO LIPSIO. De militia romana libri quinque, commentarius ad Polybium e parte prima historicae facis, Amberes, Ex officina plantiniana, 1596.

ber of Flemish scholars who lived at court, such as Pedro Pantino. Besides this epistolary testimony, the inventory of Loaysa’s assets, although quickly drafted, with evident vagueness in the items listed, gathers a remarkable number of volumes that share a specific origin: the Plantin Press28.

Plantin would not be the only figure of relevance in the cultural scene of the period with an interest in gaining Loaysa’s favour. The eminent humanist, Justus Lipsius would do as much. Thus, in a letter dated 23rd April 1593, Pantino tells Lipsius about the success of his works at court, specially those of criticism, which were particularly appreciated «not by any vulgar men, but by famous dignitaries [...]: the Count of Portalegre, García de Toledo, Loaysa and others»29. On June 14th 1595, Lipsius began his epistolary exchange with Loaysa in order to announce his sending to the Prince of a work dedicated to him: – De Militia – and requesting the support of the tutor and the defence of his interests before the young heir30. On the same date, Lipsius writes a letter to the Prince where he likewise announces the sending of his work on the art of warfare, sure that, «his Highness will give some credit to works of the clever, as they also give princes eternal fame»31. At the same time, he put his name forward to be appointed as his Highness’s chronicler in order to write his great deeds.

In this way, we see again how the courtly circle in charge of the Prince’s education, and particularly his tutor, would be the focus of the attention of one of the most prominent scholars of the period. He would dedicate to the future Philip III the work dedicated to the army: «the weapon with which [the Romans] conquered, aided by virtue, territories in both hemispheres, preserving them for many centuries»32. Therefore, the work is proposed as exempla for the Prince, with numerous precepts for the peace and the war, with the purpose of preserving his states and territories [FIG. 3].

However, as has been stated above, the objects treasured in his residence, as well as the volumes comprised in the vast library compiled by Loaysa33, are the best testimonial of his scholarship and the ample interests which included subjects ranging from theo-

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logical studies, through classical authors to the descriptions of territories and treatises on architecture and engineering.

As for the objects that may be interesting for our study, we have to highlight that in the first room of Loaysa’s gallery there were «four maps, one of them big» («quatro de mapas la Una dellas Grande»)34. Also, together with two desks, the inventory included «two little walnut drawers with two globes covered with green cloth» («dos cajoncillos de Nogal con dos glouos Cubiertos con paños berdes»). In the second room, we find a small terrestrial globe. Also, in the list of his possessions, there were several measuring instruments, such as astrolabes or hourglasses35.

More interesting still are the subjects of the books in Loaysa’s library. The possession of particular books was an important means to gain an insight into the life and interests of their owner. Regarding mathematics, Loaysa gathered works by Archimedes, Euclid, several treatises on Arithmetic by Juan de Ortega, Gemma Frisius, Cardano, or even a copy of Moya’s36 Geometry, among others.

Cosmography, or the science of measuring the universe, occupied an important space in his library, where there were several books containing prints or illuminations on the discipline: several on Geography by Ptolemy in different formats37, treatises on the Sphaera by Sacrobosco38, several cosmographies by Petrus Apianus39, a copy of Natural History by Pliny40 as well as another edition of the volumes second to fourth of Pliny41; «one Theatre of the World in Spanish», «a Theatrum orbis Terrarum re-painted and illuminated with colours», «an illuminated Additamentum Theatrum Orbis by Ortelius», «an illuminated Speculum Orbis Terrarum», «Geographical Thesaurus by Abraham Ortelius», one «small Epitome Theatri Orteliani with maps» or a «Theatrum instrumentorum»42.

We also find several books on descriptions of continents and regions «A classical description of Europe by Justus Lipsius» («Una descripcion antigua de la europa de Justo libsio»)43, «A geography of Spain, France, Austria and Switzerland, with its indexes of pictures» («Una geografia despaña françia Austria y Elbeçio, con sus Tablas destampas»)44, descriptions of Africa, Greece45, the Netherlands46, copies of the Leo Belgicus, a description of the Kingdom of Valencia, a treatise on river Guadiana, books of maps, of topography, of prosopography illustrated with engravings47. On architecture, Loaysa owned a great number of volumes: several treatises by Vitruvius, in Italian and Spanish48, several by Serlio, also in Italian and Spanish49, by Palladio, by Pietro Cataneo and a treatise on fortifications, by an unidentified author, among others50.

Besides, Loaysa’s own literary production proves his «great science» and diversified erudition: Loaysa was in charge of correcting and restoring the Etymologiae by Saint Isidore, «whose province, being as it was a whole library of books, was no less than that of a Christian Pliny»51. Also, the revision of the papers from his library, preserved in the National Library in Madrid, further illustrates this particular; together with sermons written

by Loaysa, we also find texts on astronomy, on the new Roman Calendar52 and even drawings of architecture and maps [FIG. 4]53.

Due to space limitations, it is impossible to offer a complete list of the volumes on scientific matters collected by the Prince’s tutor54. The few books mentioned are a significant sample of the readings and objects which were the solace of the Prince’s tutor,

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«Mapa de Europa en el que vienen descritas diversas indicaciones sobre las acciones de la Armada española frente a las costas de Inglaterra junto a la representación de la Torre de Londres», drawing contained in Various Papers with reports, letters, poems, briefs, papal bulls, historical information, etc., Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Mss. 5785, f. 168 r.

FIG. 4

as well as proof of his erudition in matters such as mathematics, cosmography and astrology, among many other disciplines.

In this sense, as reflected in the contemporary pedagogical literature, and more specifically, as stated by the aforementioned Obregón y Cereceda, regarding the disposition and the desire of the Prince to know what is Philosophy, in contrast with those who are «ignorant», the ones who do not want to learn, we find «those who, with little or no effort, but for pleasure, could do it, such are the Princes and Lords: whom, only by speaking an hour a day with a man of wisdom, in a short time, without ever opening a book, will know as much as those with long hours of study»55. Or, to put it in other words, in the case of the young Prince, devoting long time to reading would not be a sine qua non condition in order to acquire ample knowledge, if the tutor and his courtly circle, where his education was developed, were men of profound erudition, they would be responsible for transmitting this knowledge in the form of conversation.

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The Mathematics Tutor: Juan Bautista Labaña In the contemporary historiography we find several studies on the role of the Marquis of Velada in the Prince’s education; to a lesser extent, we also find references to his tutor, García de Loaysa; however, during this research we have not been able to find any reference in the latest publications on Philip III’s education to his having a mathematics tutor56. Nevertheless, considering the chronological framework in which his education was developed, and the interest shown by his father for this particular subject, it seems only logical to consider the hypothesis that mathematics constituted an important chapter in the pedagogical programme of the Prince, and that the prudent monarch had provided his son with the teachings of a reputed mathematician from the courtly environment.

Regarding this matter, the documentary sources of the period confirm this hypothesis.

Thus, in one of the clauses in cosmographer and former professor in the Academy of Mathematics Juan Bautista Labaña’s57 holographic last will, he requests the king – at the moment, Philip IV – to bestow upon him greater mercy because he has served His Majesty for fifty-two years, both as Prince and King. Further, he also declares as well that he had been his mathematics tutor, as well as his father’s, his grandfather’s, and that of D. Sebastian, King of Portugal58.

The information contained in Labaña’s last will is not the only document where the cosmographer recorded his pedagogical work on mathematics tutoring the princes of the House of Austria. In the prologue to the Nobiliario de don Pedro Conde de Bracelos59, Labaña, while explaining the genesis of his work, he states that the manuscript had been written in the free time between the lessons he taught the Prince – the future Philip IV60 – in San Lorenzo de El Escorial during the summer of 1620, and during the nights of the following winter, which he would spend in Madrid61. Although this mention to the Escurialensis monastery as the scenario for scientific training makes reference to his successor, in the case of Philip III we find no specific reference to the place where Labaña’s lessons on mathematics took place. However, recent studies have indicated that during the last years of the decade of the eighties, the future Philip III would have had to accompany his father to the lectures of the Academy of Mathematics, which took place in the patio of the Alcazar, with great admiration for Labaña62.

Therefore, we can state that the relationship established between Labaña and Philip III started in the period of the monarch’s training, when the cosmographer would have played the role of his mathematics preceptor, and that it continued later during his reign.

In this way, Labaña would retain the favour of the man who was his royal pupil after he was enthroned: in 1601, Philip III would send him to Flanders in order to gather materials for a genealogy of the Habsburgs. Later on, he would appoint him Major Chronicler of the Kingdom of Portugal, and offer him the prestigious robe of the Order of Christ63.

Moreover, and more importantly in relation to the topic we are considering, he commissioned him the training of his heir, the future Philip IV, in mathematics and cosmography, as his father Philip II once did.

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Other Wise Men Knowledgeable in Mathematics and «the Art of Describing» in the Prince’s Court: the Case of Jehan Lhermite The Flemish Jehan Lhermite was appointed Member of the Chamber («ayuda de cámara») of king Philip II in 1590. But also, in connection with the Prince’s education, he would also be responsible for pedagogical work which was not strictly connected to a royal appointment. Thus, Lhermite, in the diary where he gathered his experience at the Spanish court, El Pasatiempos, explains how in 1592, Philip II commissions him to teach the Prince the French language64. The following year, on one occasion when the Prince was practicing this language, Lhermite, in order to avoid the excessive burden of the study, suggested, as a pastime, to start some practice in geometry. Regarding this latter discipline, it must be pointed out that Lhermite had connections with prominent mathematicians, and proved his own ample scientific interests. These elements, together with his proximity to the Prince and his repeated «inventions» to entertain the heir, made of him a character of the greatest importance in the research of the scientific training of the future Philip III. The sources of the period reveal that Lhermite, actually, must have had impressive knowledge of mathematics, and there is an interesting account in his Pasatiempos. For example, when he describes the episode of Phelippe of Lannoy’s death, which occurred in March 1594, Lhermite recalls some memories and experiences lived with his deceased friend: «[...] the previous winter we had studied together the Theory of the Sphere, by a great mathematician, called the doctor Andres García de Céspedes, and we had understood it reasonably well»65.

However, this would not be the only reference to the study of mathematics and astronomy in his writings. Later on in his Pasatiempos, Lhermite describes how, in 1598, the gentleman spent his free time acquiring deeper knowledge in the art and science of astronomy. The interesting thing is that, at this point of the story, Lhermite inserted a Treatise on astronomy and astrology, written entirely in Spanish by the author, following the method of Dr. Andrés García de Céspedes and bachelor Cedillo. Also, Lhermite would transcribe in El pasatiempos, a treatise on solar quadrants by the same author66.

A year later, Lhermite recalls how he «also found great pleasure in the study of the sundials, for which purpose he daily met the aforementioned Doctor Andrés García de Çespedes, mathematician of the king, a singular man, expert in this art and science, from whom he obtained a treatise on the manufacturing of sundials» and some lines below, he describes the sundial made by the engineer Juanelo Turriano, able to perform beautiful and curious operations, amongst which the movements of the planets can be included67. Regarding this topic, other sources of the period, besides his diary, reveal that Lhermite’s interest in these mathematical and measuring instruments surpassed the limits of a mere entertainment and became one of his courtly occupations; thus, in the inventory of assets written after Philip II’s death, sundials, astrolabes and other mathematical instruments which were in the so-called Cubillo (Small Hall) and the «Torre Dorada» (Golden Tower) were in fact under the responsibility of «Juan Thermite», member of His Majesty’s Chamber68. It is not by chance, therefore, that Lhermite had a close relationship with illustrious mathematicians, and it is convenient to note here that García de Céspedes had been re-

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sponsible for Turriano’s sundial collection in the Alcazar, at least between the end of 1593 and 159469.

About Lhermite’s responsibilities in the Household of the Prince, these were not limited to French or Geometry lessons. Among the expenses in the Prince’s «guardajoyas» we find a payment made on April 10th 1596 by order of the Marquis of Velada, and by order Jean Lhermite to Pedro Charles, «for the transportation and costs of two coffers from Flanders, under the orders of Juº del Hermite, containing fifty-one books on Music for H. H. [...]»70. So it seems evident that, to a certain extent, Lhermite played an active role in acquiring «didactic» material for the Prince, and although Philip III’s taste for music is well-known and the question is beyond the scope of this research, it is convenient to note this discipline was part of the Quadrivium, together with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy.

We will conclude this section by including some unpublished written news about Lhermite. These are two powers of attorney given by Lhermite himself during his stay at court in 1621 in order to retrieve some amounts of money. The first one was given on February 20th 1621 to Juan de Tapia, a merchant in the city of Seville, to retrieve 562.500 maravedis, which, as per a Royal Charter dated November 18th 1620, were owed by Philip III71. However, this payment must not have taken place, because on April 25th 1621, Lhermite writes a new power of attorney to Juan Fernández, a merchant living in Madrid, in order to go to Seville and get the 1500 ducats72. These notary documents are interesting for several reasons. The first is that in both documents, Lhermite states his position at court in 1621: in the first document he appears as «member of His Majesty’s chamber, at this court (“ayuda de camara de su mag.d estante en esta corte”)» 73 and in the second, «member of His Majesty’s chamber, who is in Heaven, at this court (“ayuda de camara de su mag.d questa en el cielo estante en esta corte”)»74, because Philip III had just passed away between the writing of both letters. Besides, in the documents, it is evident that Lhermite, although frequently absent from court, had to maintain important connections with it, such as Mr. Claudio Jacob, chaplain to the king and confessor to the archers, who acts as a witness in both documents. Therefore, these documents are evidence that the relationship forged between Philip III during his years as a pupil with the man who introduced him to the science of Geometry was to last during all his reign and until the last days of the monarch.

In conclusion, it can be stated that the education of the future Philip III was a «matter» of the greatest importance to guarantee the good government and the preservation of the territories of the Spanish monarchy. Not in vain, the painting known as Allegory of the Education of Philip III [FIG. 1] occupied a place of unquestionable symbolic relevance in the Alcazar towards the end of the sixteenth century, together with the portrait of Emperor Charles V on horseback at Mühlberg [FIG. 5] and Philip II offering the Infante don Fernando to the Heavens [FIG. 6], by Titian75. Between the three works, a dialogical relationship was established, with a clear allegorical-dynastic meaning.

However, the pedagogical programme intended for the Prince’s education in mathematics has been an aspect omitted by contemporary historiography, and to the knowledge of which we have tried to contribute with these lines. Although several questions

THE IMAGE OF THE ORB AND MATHEMATICS IN THE EDUCATION OF PRINCE PHILIP III

343

FIG. 5 TIZIANO, Emperor Charles V on horseback at Mühlberg, 1548, oil on canvas, 335 x 283 cm, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado (P00410).

remain unsolved, we trust that new information will arise in the forthcoming years about the scientific education of the «minor» Austrias. It has been proven that, regardless of the qualities and abilities of the Prince Philip III in connection with scientific knowledge, there must have been an interest and concern on the part of his father, in surrounding his heir with a pleiad of tutors essentially competent in mathematical knowledge and the image of the orb which the Prince was destined to rule and preserve,

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 6 TIZIANO, Philip II offering the Infante don Fernando to the Heavens, 1573-1575, oil on canvas, 335 x 274 cm, Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado (P00431).

including García de Loaysa, Juan Bautista Labaña and Jehan Lhermite. Besides, the training of the Prince proved to be a period of special transcendence in order to understand the future reign of the monarch and the knowledge of the cursus honorum by figures such as Labaña or Lhermite, because it was at that time when the Prince started a close relationship with his tutors in sciences, which was to last to the decline of his days.

THE IMAGE OF THE ORB AND MATHEMATICS IN THE EDUCATION OF PRINCE PHILIP III

345

NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

National Distance Education University (UNED), College of History of Art, Senda del Rey, 7, 3rd floor, 28040, Madrid, mavazquez@geo.uned.es. This work has been carried out thanks to the predoctoral position FPI (BES-2013-062631) of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness.

PORREÑO, n.d., Ms. 2297, ff. 19r.-19v. («Don Phelippe segundo deste nombre llamado el prudente, fue en grande manera inclinado a las sciencias, y premiò superiormente a todos los hombres insignes en ellas [...] fue tan eminente en la Geometría y Architectura, o por su estudio particular, o por el largo exercicio de edificar, o por su natural, o por todo Junto, que supo lo mejor desta arte con tanta eminencia y acierto, como los maiores artífices della»).

An analysis of the education and the constitution of the House of Prince Philip III, focused mainly on the role played by his guardian («ayo»), the Marquis of Velada, is found in: MARTÍNEZ HERNÁNDEZ, 1999, 2004, pp. 245-304, y 2008. FEROS, 2002, pp.39-74, has focused on the learning of Philip III, within the framework of the courtly political scene of the period; Pérez de Tudela, 2008, analyses the artistic education and the configuration of the Prince’s image.

SEPÚLVEDA, 1924.

Ibíd., pp. 75-76.

NOVOA, n.d.

NOVOA, n.d., ff. 22r.-22v. («[...] pasaba con vigilancia y atenzión el noble estudio de la Cosmographia en los dos libros de Gerardo, y Abraham Ortelio, en qué sabrá con fundamento la unión, y división de unos Reinos, y Provinzias, con otras; el assiento de las Ciudades, ritos, y costumbres, ríos Montes, Calas, estrechos, demás Islas, Puertos, ensenadas, corriendo por las linias y parages de la navegación, altúras, baxíos, nortes, y estrellas: recompensando en esto la falta de la experiencia, y ver el mundo en dos pliegos de papêl; entender el tiempo, sin el qual no es possible saberse portar con las Naciones própias, quanto y mas con las extrangeras; donde es tan necesario estar advertido para las levas de gente, echar armadas, Juntar exércitos; encaminarlas por los passos dificultosos, que no sean vistos, ni entendidos del enemigo; fortificar plazas, y fabricarlas, que no siempre es acertado fiarlo todo dél Ministro, que entonces es mas vigilante, quando sabe que su Prinzipe está dueño, y capáz de las matérias de la navegación. En qualquiera planta de edificar daba su parecer con admiración, y veneración de los que le oían [...]»).

MARTÍNEZ HERNÁNDEZ, 2008, p. 98 briefly mentions Patricio Cajés as one of his masters; PÉREZ DE TUDELA, 2008, p. 116 mentions the dedication of this work, taking Patricio for his brother, Eugenio Cajés.

CAJÉS, 1593, n.d. («[...] como hijo bien digno de tal padre, ha començado ya a dar tan grandes muestras de querer imitar sus heroicas uirtudes, y en particular se vee q. U.A. assi mismo gusta de uno de los fundamentos de la Architetura, que según Vitruuio es el dibuxo, he me determinado dirigir a V.A. el libro de Viñola»).

YÁÑEZ, 1723, p. 134.

GONZÁLEZ DÁVILA, 1771, p. 13 («Mas querría ver muerto al Príncipe, que no darle malas personas que le acompañen y le sirvan»). Ídem («le señalasen las personas, que tuviesen las partes convenientes para educar un Príncipe, que havia de ser Señor de una Monarquía tan dilatada y Católica»).

Quotation from MARTÍNEZ HERNÁNDEZ, 2008, p. 87 («seruir con rigor a nuestro Señor [...] lenguas, matemáticas, astrología, lógica, philosophia, metafísica, teología de la Complutense»).

In the case of the Prince’s guardian («ayo»), Mr. Gómez Dávila, Marquis of Velada, his interest in drawing and architecture as well as his connection to architects such as Francisco de Mora has been studied by MARTÍNEZ HERNÁNDEZ, 2003. In addition to the books on architecture and engineering mentioned in MARTÍNEZ HERNÁNDEZ’s article (2003, p. 62), a revision of the documentary source ( the «inventory made upon the death of Mrs. Ana de Toledo y Colona, Marchioness of Velada») drafted in 1596 (AHPM, Prot. 1810, f.

1291 r.) reveals that the Prince’s guardian («ayo») also owned interesting books on cosmography: «Description of the world» (f. 1324 r.), «Another on the manufacture of the astrolabe», «Four papers on the Sphere», «A big book, with coloured satin cover, on Theatrum Orbis», «A big book with the same binding as the Theatrum orbis terrarum», «Another on the navigation through the Western Canal between France and Spain» (f. 1326 r.), among others. Also, the Marquis possessed interesting measurement instruments or instruments for the description of the world, which account for his interest in scientific matters, including several sundials, «two astrolabes, one big, and the other small», «a big sphere, in its box», «a metal artefact with several screws and a key to set it up» (f. 1342 v.).

OBREGÓN Y CERECEDA, 1603.

OBREGÓN Y CERECEDA, 1603, p. 118 («Diziendo su Alteza estas palabras, se leuanto, y despues de auer vn buen rato descansado en su cámara, salio a vna pieça donde sobre vnos bufetes estauan algunos libros, vna esfera, dos globos, y algunas descripciones y mapas, de la disposición de tierra y mar, y de los sitios de las Prouincias, y alli el Maestro, que assi en esto, como en las demas cosas es eminente, le fue prosiguiendo la leccion de Matematica, que de ordinario se la enseñan, por ser tan necessario a los Principes semejante disciplina, y tan loable la ocupacion destos exercicios, pues vemos que ninguna cosa abre mas el camino para los consejos de la guerra, y los buenos sucesos della, que su inteligencia»).

PÉREZ PASTOR, 1891, p. 341.

AGP, Admón., leg. 660, n.d. («En X de Julio de 1596 se Pagaron a Julio de Junti de modesti sesenta y seys Reales por otros tantos que pago por Un Plinio infolio que dio para su al.o el papel el qual se enquaderno En S[an]. L[orenzo] Por quenta de la Librería [...]»).

On the history of the Greek collection preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) from Loaysa’s library, vid. FERNÁNDEZ POMAR, 1965 and 1978; ANDRÉS, 1974.

PRIETO BERNABÉ, 2004, p.96, counts a total of 4378 volumes in Loaysa’s library.

BOUZA, 1998, p. 160, indicates the importance of Plantinian correspondence as a source for political history, indicating how the printer sought Loaysa’s protection after his appointment as the Prince’s tutor.

DENUCÉ, 1968, v. 7, pp. 309-310.

DENUCÉ, 1968, v. 8, p. 82.

Ibíd., p. 83.

Ibíd., pp. 130-133.

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26. Ibíd., pp. 133-134.

27. Ibíd., pp. 228-229.

28. In Loaysa’s library inventory (AHPM, Prot. 1811) we find several bibles with fine prints, among the works printed by Plantin 29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

(ff.1501r., 1501v., 1502 r.) and «a book on Bible concordances» (f. 1503 v.), among others.

RAMÍREZ, 1966, p. 64 («no por cualesquiera hombres del vulgo, sino por famosísimos próceres [...]: el Conde de Portalegre, García de Toledo, Loaysa y otros»).

Ibíd., pp. 119-120.

Ibíd., p. 122 («Serenidad concede algún mérito a las obras de los ingenios, porque también ellas devuelven a los Príncipes eterna fama»).

Ibíd., p. 129 («el arma con la que conquistaron [los romanos] teniendo a la virtud por compañera, territorios en ambos hemisferios, conservándolos durante muchos siglos»).

AHPM, Prot. 1811, ff. 1494 r.-1721r.

Ibíd., f.1496r.

Ibíd., ff.1655r.-1655v.

Ibíd., ff. 1534v., 1542r., 1536r., 1537r., 1542v. and 1619v.

Ibíd., ff. 1534r., 1541v.

Ibíd., ff. 1541v., 1543v.

Ibíd., ff. 1537r., 1543r.

Ibíd., f. 1534r.

Ibíd., f. 1552r.

Ibíd., ff. 1533v., 1534r., 1543r., 1533v. («Un Teatro orbis Terraru en Romanze», «Un Treatum orbis Terrarun rreTocado yluminado de colores», «Un adiTamentun Teatrun orbis de ortelio yluminado», «Un especulun, orbis terarun Luminado», «Tesauros Jeograficos de abrahamo ortelio», un «epitomes Teatri ortiano pequeñito De mapas» o un «Teatro ynstrumentorum»).

Ibíd., 1534r.

Ibíd., f.1618r.

Ibíd., ff. 1534r., 1557v.

Ibíd., ff.1549v., 1622r.

Ibíd., ff. 1550r., 1551 v., 1618v., 1543r., 1618v., 1620v, 1621r.

Ibíd., ff. 1541v., 1542r., 1620r.

Ibíd., ff. 1533r., 1541v.

Ibíd., ff. 1542v., 1535v., 1580 r.

PORREÑO, Mss. 13027, f. 212r. («cuya provincia por ser como es una Bibliotheca entera de libros no era menos que de un Plinio Christiano»).

Mss. 5739, f. 147r.

Mss. 5785, f.168r. The «Mapa de Europa en el que vienen descritas diversas indicaciones de la Armada española frente a las costas de Inglaterra junto a la representación de la Torre de Londres» (Fig. 4) is reproduced in PARKER, 2010, plate 50, who attributes it to Bernardino Escalante. About the enterprise of England (1585-1588), see PARKER, 2010, pp. 813-855. On this drawing, see idem, p. 821.

On the books and images of scientific nature gathered by Loaysa, the author will present the paper «Books and images of science collected by García de Loaysa, preceptor of Philip III» in the next conference of the Renaissance Society of America (Boston, 2016).

OBREGÓN Y CERECEDA, 1603, p. 5 («aquellos particularmente, que con poca o ninguna fatiga, mas a su plazer podrían hazerlo, como son comúnmente todos los Principes y Señores: los quales hablando vna hora sola en el dia con vn hombre de letras, en poco tiempo, sin abrir jamás libro, sabran aquello que aquel con largo estudio huuiesse aprendido»).

Vid. note 2.

On Labaña, see CORTESÃO et al., 1960, pp. 63-70 and HERNANDO, 1996.

AHPM, Prot. 2133, f.568v.

LABAÑA, 1620.

About Labaña’s role as mathematics and geography preceptor to Philip IV, see KAGAN, 2002, pp. 50-56.

LABAÑA, 1620, f. 2 v.

VICENTE MAROTO et al., 2006, p. 97.

KAGAN, 2002, p. 53.

LHERMITE, 2005, pp. 201-202.

LHERMITE, 2005, pp. 237-238 («[...] el invierno anterior habíamos estudiado la Teoría de la Esfera de un muy gran matemático llamado El dotor Andres García de Céspedes, y la habíamos entendido razonablemente bien»).

Ibíd., pp. 389-390, note 26.

Ibíd., pp. 508-509 («deleitaba también grandemente con el estudio de los relojes o cuadrantes del sol, para lo cual frecuentaba todos los días al ya nombrado Doctor Andrés García de Çespedes, matemático del rey, un hombre muy singular y experto en este arte y ciencia y de quien obtuve el siguiente tratado sobre la fabricación de estos relojes o cuadrantes de sol»).

SÁNCHEZ CANTÓN, 1956-59 v. 2, pp. 309-326.

VICENTE MAROTO et al., 2006, p. 105.

AGP, Admón., Leg. 660, n.d. («por el flete y Costas de Dos Cofres que Uinieron de Flandes por q[uenta] del dicho Juo del Hermite en que Uenian cinquenta y vn libros de música para su alo [...]»).

AHPM, Prot. 3476, f. 40 r.

Ibíd., f. 64r.-64 v.

Ibíd., f. 40 r.

Ibíd., f. 64 r.

SÁNCHEZ CANTÓN, 1956-59, v. 2, pp. 250-252.

THE IMAGE OF THE ORB AND MATHEMATICS IN THE EDUCATION OF PRINCE PHILIP III

347

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Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Mss. 5785.

SEVERAL AUTHORS (n.d.),

Papeles varios, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Mss. 5739.

SEVERAL AUTHORS (n.d.), Papeles varios con informes, cartas, versos, breves, bulas pontificias, noticias históricas, etc.,

Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, Mss. 5785.

VICENTE MAROTO, M. I.

and ESTEBAN PIÑEIRO, M. (2006), Aspectos de la ciencia aplicada en la España del Siglo de

Oro, Valladolid, Junta de Castilla y León, Consejería de Cultura y Turismo.

YÁÑEZ, J.

(ed.) (1723), «Adiciones a la Historia del Marqués Virgilio Malvezzi», in V. MALVEZZI, Memorias para la

Historia de Don Felipe III, rey de España. Recogidas por Don Juan Yáñez. Dirigidas a el Excelentissimo Señor Marques de Grimaldo del Consejo de Estado del Rey Nuestro Señor, Madrid, Oficina Real.

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15 «Tengo gran macchina di cose per intagliare...»

[I have a large collection of things to be engraved...]

The Drawings of Commander Tiburzio Spannocchi, Chief Engineer of the Kingdoms of Spain ALICIA CÁMARA1 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Translation: DIANE SCHOFIELD

ABSTRACT

The engineer Tiburzio Spannocchi, Knight of the Order of Malta, owed his fame to a large extent to his ability to draw. The aim of this study is to highlight his versatility as a draughtsman in the context of the military engineering of the era. He described the feats of Marco Antonio Colonna and the Marquis of Santa Cruz, and drew fortifications and territories on the frontiers of the kingdoms of the Spanish monarchy for Phillip II and Phillip III. Before he died he desired to publish his writings and his drawings, which explains their presence in some of the collections in Florence and Rome. The secrecy with which the monarchy guarded these drawings to prevent them from being seen by its enemies in the end prevented their publication. Some of the unpublished drawings from his travel notebooks which explain the process of this engineer’s projects are also analyzed.

KEYWORDS

Tiburzio Spannocchi, drawing, Naples, Sicily, Navarino, Lepanto, Palma de Mallorca.

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From the times of commander Pedro Luis Escrivà, who wrote in 1538 that he was already old when he came to «al arte y en ella no tuve preceptor ni supe tomar pinzel ni esto lo quiero fiar de pintores» [art and in which I had no preceptor nor knew how to hold the brush nor do I want to trust painters in this]2, until the times of commander Tiburzio Spannocchi, who attained almost everything thanks to his ability to draw, there was an evolution in the profession of military architects which included the introduction of drawing into the world of war which gained an importance which had been unknown until that moment. The drawing of the war scenarios, the projection of the fortifications on paper, the relation of the feats with images … all of these were aspects without which rulers no longer understood the exercise of power. This would explain the frequency with which the world of war and fortification assembled painters who are nowadays only considered as such, like Pellegrino Tibaldi, who the same Spannocchi in 1589 referred to as an engineer3, or sculptors like Camillo Camiliani, author of the Libro delle Torre maritime [Book of maritime towers] in Sicily, who would also work in Spain for a few years4.

The use made of drawings in war was varied, either at the time of the action, or as a souvenir or memorial. For example, Juan Bautista Antonelli, on the occasion of the annexation of the kingdom of Portugal, drew the formation of the army so that the king could see it clearly while he observed it from a hill5, and long before, the emperor took with him in the Conquest of Tunis in 1535 the Flemish painter Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen to document the battle in images6. Spanocchi had a similar role as this, but with some variations, with Marco Antonio Colonna and later the Marquis of Santa Cruz in Lepanto, Navarino, and the Conquest of the Azores. The mission of the royal engineers was to describe the frontiers, project fortifications and infrastructrue, or invent devices, always using drawings, in which our engineer was a master.

Tiburzio Spannocchi had been born in Siena in 1541, in the illustrious Spannocchi family, a lineage founded by Ambrogio di Nanni Spannocchi, who had been the banker of Pope Pius II Piccolomini7. His education as a nobleman required that he master the art of drawing, as even kings needed to learn the art of painting8. He also learned contemporary poetry, music, mathematics and geometry, and strived to master calligraphy and writing. Good calligraphy made people trust a painter’s ability for drawing9, but was also something that every nobleman had to pay attention to. In fact Spannocchi’s handwriting, which gradually evolved, was always very clear and careful, an example of the good handwriting which defined the culture of the court10. His teacher in painting was Bartolomeo Neroni il Riccio from Siena, the son-in-law of Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called the Sodoma. With him he trained in «nel disegnare con penna, en el colorire a olio; ritrahendo al naturale con mirabil arte, facilità e sottigliezza, & in ogni genere di pittura» [designing with the quill, colouring with oils; portraying from nature with wonderful art, facility and subtlety, & all types of painting], and also used paintbrush and miniatures for mathematical demonstrations11. From his youth he was well aware of the importance of images in the world of war, because Il Riccio was a military architect, as was Giorgio de Giovanni, who had worked in the decoration of the Vatican loggias, both painters working as military architects during the Siena war, which Tiburzio must have lived with intensity during his adolescence12.

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DRAWER OF HEROIC FEATS

«Hazaña» [feat] in Covarrubias’s dictionary of 1611 means «el hecho heroico y famoso» [the heroic and famous deed], and all the warriors wanted to have a witness who would know how to relate these feats in words and describe them in images to thus be able to achieve fame. Spannocchi was one of those who responded to this need. After working in Rome in the service of the Venetian cardinal Zaccaria Delfino and the cardinal from Trento Ludovico Madruzzo, he had moved on to serve Marco Antonio Colonna in 1570, and was responsible for the pictorial cycles to his greater glory in his Roman palace and above all in his fortress in Paliano13.

The paintings of the triumphs of Marco Antonio in his fortress in Paliano, traditionally attributed to Federico Zuccari or his followers, and even to the Spaniard Pablo de Céspedes, have recently been attributed by Nicolai to Tiburzio Spannocchi, who directed the team of painters. He was more than a painter; he was a historian who was responsible for one of the most interesting pictorial cycles on Lepanto and Marco Antonio Colonna.

The paintings in the vaulted ceiling of the Sala del Capitano in the fotress in Paliano, where the mortal remains of the great warrior would be laid to rest years later, represent the proposal of Marco Antonio of the Holy League to the Venetian senate and the triumphal entrance of Marco Antonio Colonna into Rome14. In 1574 he had already finished two paintings of Lepanto, one with the formation of the Turkish and Christian fleets and another of the battle, both of which have been lost, in which he sought to be true to the historic event, and not to represent a victory achieved thanks to divine protection like the one painted by Vasari15. In 1575 and 1576 both Spannocchi and the painter Paolo Veneziano di Tagliacozzo were at work on the pictorial cycle, Paolo being the one spoken of as the painter, and Spannocchi as the person in charge of the whole process and the prior designs for the fresco paintings, paintings which Nicolai has related to those practised by the artists in Siena at that moment, a fact that would undoubtedly attribute authorship to Spannocchi16. According to this author17, it can be deduced that we owe to Spannocchi the creation of a model for the historical image of one of the heroes of the Mediterranean. Mancini in 1615 attributed to Tiburzio Spannocchi the iconography of the battle of Lepanto which was disseminated throughout Europe, the relevance of which deserves to be expressed in his own words: «Il Cavre. Tiburzio Spannocchi, Cavre. Di Malta, e di antichissima, e nobilissima familia fu sanese; da givanetto servi Marc’Antonio Colonna, e fu’seco in armata del 71 dove tutti quei disegni che si vedono dell’Armate, quando che in diversi tempi s’incontravano, sono di queste Cavre. ; in ultimo servi la maestà del Re’ di Spagna con gran sodisfazione, e rimunerazione»18.

Although many works were done to commemorate this victory, engravings like those of Lafreri (or Lafréry), paintings by Titian, Tintoretto or Veronese, the ones by Luca Cambiaso in the monastery of El Escorial, those commissioned by the Barbarigo family, Ascanio de la Corgna, the papacy…19, perhaps we should pay attention to the testimonies which attribute to Tiburzio the authorship of at least one of the models used for the true representation of the battle, although we know that the Venetians were the

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FIG. 1 Description of the coast of Navarino in the Battle of 1572. In Atlante Neroni, 1602. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Fondo Nazionale, II.I. 281, c. 162r. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo / Biblioteca Nazionale centrale di Firenze.

first ones to commission canvases to describe it, just one month after the triumph, mobilising their magnificent pictorial resources and commissioning the first of the works from Tintoretto20.

Some descriptions presented the two opposing fleets stationed in the gulf in battle order before action commenced, as in one of the works by Cambiaso, painted between 1583 and 158521, others, like the one in the gallery of maps in the Vatican would mix the two moments in the event that Spannocchi had differentiated in two different works, that of the fleets ready for action, and that of the naval battle, both from a bird’s eye view22. What would Tiburzio have thought when he saw the paintings by Cambiaso on Lepanto in the lower eastern gallery of the Monastery of El Escorial?

After Lepanto, Spannocchi took part in the Battle of Navarino, although his biographer Politi says that it was in Navarino and in other battles in the same year of 1572 when «fece la prima sua militia» [he did his first millitary service]. In the Battle of Navarino he began to write his first texts as a strategist, theoretician and historian, but this is a facet which we will deal with in another text. He wrote for Marco Antonio his opinion of how to destroy in a single night the whole Turkish fleet which was in the port of Modone, a document of which his brother Orazio23 had a copy. He also wrote a «una descrittione diligentissima» [very precise description] of everything that happened day by day, which was sent by Marco Antonio Colonna to the Christian princes to compensate for the attacks he had received from some intriguers24. It is possible that the drawings from the Neroni atlas in the National Central Library of Florence (BNCF) in which this territory is described and the events narrated, come from the drawings of Tiburzio

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 2 Siege of the castle of Navarino in 1572. In Atlante Neroni, 1602. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Fondo Nazionale, II.I. 281, c.

163r. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo / Biblioteca Nazionale centrale di Firenze.

Spannocchi [FIGS. 1 and 2]. One describes the coast with Navarino and Modone, the islands, and the positions of the Turks and the Christians. The others are the attack on Navarino and the plan of the fort taken from the Turks25. To explain all that happened in images was not easy, but Spannocchi did so, and there are so many explanations that accompany the drawings in the atlas at the BNCF, that only an eyewitness could have related it and we only know one capable of doing so: Spannocchi. It was a glorious expedition, which the Marquis of Santa Cruz also wanted to see represented in his palace of El Viso.

His drawings and writings describing these feats must have given him a lot of credibility in the entourage of Marco Antonio Colonna, because another of the pictures with events of war is from 1574, but this is one in which he did not take part, a good example of the circulation of drawings and engravings which arrived at the courts with the stories of the witnesses to the wars. The subject was the siege of La Goleta, where he drew the fortress in perspective, with its artillery, «nel qual modo non si vedono molte fortezze moderne disegnate» [in a way in which not many modern fortresses are drawn] all done «dal naturale tratto da un disegno che l’anno passato fu disegnato nel luogo proprio» [from a line sketch of a drawing that was done last year in the place itself]. It is possible that the drawing that it was based on was one of those of Tunis and La Goleta which were sent to the cardinal of Trento, Ludovico Madruzzo, by Count Gerolamo Lodron in 1574, and which were used for the frescoes in the palace of Trento26. As Gerolamo Lodron had taken part at the orders of Don John of Austria in 1573 and 1574 in the Tunis undertaking, and Spannocchi is referring to a drawing which had been done the year before, that is in 1573, drawn in the place itself, it could well be one of those that was sent by this personage, or of those which came into the hands of some Roman cardinals directly from the engineer Cervellón (Serbelloni), a famous protagonist of the siege27. If we add to this the former relation of Spannocchi with the cardinal of Trento, he could easily have had access to privileged information which would have allowed him to draw the attack on La Goleta by the Turks. He explains in his letter that he had added to the description where and how the Turkish army had camped, for which reason he thought that Colonna would like this picture as much as that of the fleet «si per

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Il novo disegno di Tunisi et la Goletta fatto con le factioni haute per gl’ultimi avisi, con l’annotatione de beloardi de la nova fortezza tra Tunisi et lo Stagno, et de la mina fatta nel castello di detta città dall’Illmo S. Gabrio Serbellone con alcun altre cose piú notabili che in detti luochi sino al presente si sono fatte. 7 August 1574. AGS, MPD, 06,025.

FIG. 3

La Goleta and its territory. In Atlante Neroni, 1602. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Fondo Nazionale, II.I. 281, c. 182r. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo / Biblioteca Nazionale centrale di Firenze.

FIG. 4

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Plan of the fortress of La Goleta. In Atlante Neroni, 1602. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Fondo Nazionale, II.I. 281, c. 183r. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo / Biblioteca Nazionale centrale di Firenze.

FIG. 5

Plan of the fortress of La Goleta. Anonimo del XVII sec. GDSU, Inv. nn 4240. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo.

FIG. 6

manifestarvisi dentro ogni attione et per vedervisi la numerosità dell’esercito inimico è si per esser colorito tutto»28 [because it shows all the actions and the great size of the enemy army and because it is all in colour]. The one by Spannocchi was a painting or a coloured drawing done before the final attack and subsequent loss of La Goleta, a chronicle of the siege which had begun on 13th July. The wife of Marco Antonio had liked it so much that she had shown the picture of La Goleta to cardinal Pacheco and cardinal Como29.

Bearing these elements in mind and the fact that engravings were circulating which could have served as an inspiration to Tiburzio it would not be unusual that this painting by Spannocchi was one of those which summarized what was known of the seige and ended up as an engraving [FIG. 3]30. It is very probable that the drawings of La Goleta in the Neroni atlas in the BNCF [FIGS. 4 and 5], clearly based on those in the Istituto Storico di Cultura dell’Arma del Genio (Iscag) and the Uffizi Gallery [FIG. 6], ultimately refer to the drawings used by Spannocchi for the painting he describes in his letter31.

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FIG. 7

La Jornada de la Isla Tercera. Hall of Battles of the Monastery of El Escorial. Patrimonio Nacional.

We can consider more questions, while waiting for the archives to provide more information, like what relation Spannocchi had to the battle of Lepanto which the Marquis of Santa Cruz had commissioned for his palace of El Viso, a fresco which has disapeared but which would have been on the ceiling of the main hall32. And what about the representation in the Hall of Battles in the monastery of El Escorial of the capturing of Filippo Strozzi and of the conquest of Angra in the Azores? [FIG. 7]. Both were feats of the Marquis of Santa Cruz, at which Spannocchi was present, as he repeated several times in his memorials when he requested the important promotions in his career33. It is possible that, in the same way that the drawings of Rodrigo of Holland could have served for other battle scenes in the hall of the monastery, the drawings of Spanocchi could have been used to paint these scenes, so lacking in divine protection and grandiloquence as had been the paintings which narrated the triumphs of Marco Antonio Colonna in Paliano34, in a tradition of describing historical events which has a previous paradigmatic example in the tapestries of the conquest of Tunis by the Emperor. Perhaps we can relate this type of historical description whether written or painted to the desire to construct a rigorous history which, opposing false chronicles, would find its culmination in the creation of the General Archive of Simancas35. For these historians who described the events, wars were not won by the saints, this was another discourse, also legitimate and thus so often represented, they were the men who won them and created history; because they are descriptions of places and actions, and in the drawings of Spannocchi, which

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FIG. 8

MOSQUERA DE FIGUEROA.

Comentario en breve compendio de disciplina militar en que se escribe la jornada de las islas

de las Azores, Madrid, 1596.

we know, there is no invention, something which was consubstantial with painting according to the treatises, there is only a description, one of the competences of the engineers, as Lechuga recalled at the beginning of the seventeenth century36. On his role in the conquest of the Azores by the Marquis of Santa Cruz, we should recall that he had known Spannocchi since the Battle of Navarino37. The book by Mosquera de Figueroa published in 1596 included an engraving [FIG. 8] for which Spannocchi possibly provided the drawing, bearing in mind the information we have already discovered, although it is true that the Milanese engineer Juan Bautista Cairato was also in the Azores fleet, and had worked for the marquis from 1577 and this same year of 1583 was designated chief engineer of Portuguese India38.

Mosquera recalled that «Tiburzio Espanoque, caballero del habito de S. Juan, exercitado en las mathemáticas, mostró con estendido discurso y mucha advertencia y puntualidad la descripción desta isla assi en lo que toca a la Cosmografía, como a la Geografía, con toda particularidad de lugares» [Tiburzio Espanoque, knight of the order of St. John, and experienced in mathematics, showed with extensive discourse and great explanations and exactitude the description of this island with regard to cosmography, as well as geography, with great details on the places]39. Again it is his skill as a painter and draughtsman that is described as exceptional, as well as his mastery of cosmography, geography and chorography. It would not be strange that some of the paintings in the palace of El Viso, built by the Marquis of Santa Cruz, who

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«fabricó esta memoria ilustre para los sucessores» [«built this illustrious memory for his successors»]40, related to the battle against the French in Lisbon and the taking of the Azores, which are chronicled even though if they were done they have disappeared41, could come from the drawings of Spannocchi. The Marquis of Santa Cruz, who had already used an engineer to draw the Battle of Tetuan in 1565, always carried with him maps and plans42, and took great care with the representation of his feats in his palace, intending them to be exact narrations of what had happened and the scenes of the action.

SECRECY VERSUS FAME. THE DISPERSION OF SPANNOCCHI’S DRAWINGS

Tiburzio Spannocchi did a great quantity of drawings related to the frontiers and their control and defence. At the end of his life he wanted to publish them, but died before he was able to do so. This would have transgressed one of the principles of military engineers’ drawings, their secret nature. He tried to do so however, and sent drawings to Italy seeking the fame that their printing would bring. This is why some of them can be found in the Department of Drawings and Prints (Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe) at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and in the Historical Institute of the Culture of Military Engineering (Istituto Storico di Cultura dell’Arma del Genio) in Rome43. It seems that Spannocchi’s drawings got to the Uffizi Gallery through the Grand Duke of Tuscany, either donated or sold by the Spannocchi family when this branch died out. The ones in the Iscag in Rome would come from the Orsini, collectors of these plans44. The marriage of Marco Antonio Colonna to Felice Orsini and the relation of Spannocchi with the Roman cardinals and his family connection with Pope Paul V, may help to explain how Rome was also a destination for his drawings.

The Spanish archives conserve some of his drawings and writings, which were possibly part of the ones which were given up as lost by Politi, when he wrote that many of the writings about fortifications, about the correct government of the states and other questions were lost, something he knew from the letters to his brothers, especially his brother Orazio, when he was still living in Siena, before becoming Bishop of Chiuci45.

He was the person that Tiburzio charged, in a letter written from Valladolid on 10th May 1604, with finding printers for his writings and good engravers for his drawings in Siena or in Florence, because in Valladolid, where the court was at that time, there weren’t any: «e perche con detti discorsi vi vanno implicati alcuni disegni, che converria mandarli cortar in rame, con bolino, o acqua forte: procurate un buon cortatore» [and because the said texts are accompanied by some drawings, which should be engraved on copper, with a burin, or etched: try to find a good engraver]. He asked his brother to encourage them to produce good work because if he was happy with what was done, he would order many more works because «tengo gran macchina di cose per intagliare…», [«I have a large collection of things to be engraved...»] and at sixty-three years old it was his main interest to publish his writings and drawings, which his continuous travels had stopped him for doing up until then. He was going to do it «a benefitio universale» [for the benefit of all].

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He again wrote from Valladolid, on 16th November of the same year, that he would send the more complete drawings, with the best technique, as soon as possible because what he had sent up until then had only been like a declaration of intent. We would like to underline that in this letter he warns that «alcune cosse non possan tenere gratitudine a gli occhi altrui, per esser semplici dimostrationi matematiche» [some things may not be appreciated by other people, as they are just simple mathematical demonstrations], which recalls his training in mathematics in his youth. In February 1606, the year the court returned from Valladolid to Madrid and Tiburzio died, he sent new writings for printing and the drawings were practically finished. It is especially interesting that he expressed his fear that on his death they would pass into the hands of foreigners, and that they would publish them under their own names. What he was sending were copies of his writings, keeping the originals himself, and about the drawings he said that he could not send them as quickly as he would like «perche forzosamente hanno da uscir tutti di mia mano» [«because they all must come from my own hand»]46.

When Spannocchi died his brothers did everything possible to obtain the engineer’s papers. Some were given to his follower Jerónimo de Soto and other writings were handed to Tommaso Cellesi, who would become archbishop of Ragusa and apostolic nuncio in Dalmatia. Cellesi took them with him when he returned to Spain with the cardinal and apostolic nuncio Giovanni Garsia Mellini, who held this position until May 1607, but Cellesi, according to what Politi remembered had not mentioned them47. As a hypothesis it is possible that they came to Rome by means of Mellini, nuncio at the Spanish court, who had been designated cardinal by Paul V, the Borghese Pope from Siena, a relative of Spannocchi with whom the engineer corresponded. All of these are pieces of a puzzle which, while we wait for Tiburzio’a correspondence to be found, give an approximate albeit partial picture of the story of this engineer and the dispersion of his drawings.

The drawings which can be attributed to Spannocchi in the Uffizi Gallery and the Iscag deserve to be studied in greater depth, and here we just want to refer to some of the fortifications of the Spanish kingdoms in Italy, which were the ones that made him famous and took him to the court of Phillip II. As far as we know, the first drawings that Phillip II saw by Spannocchi were of the fortifications of the kingdom of Naples, which were so beautiful that the king kept them in the gallery next to his room, to be able to look at them, and later on Colonna sent the description of Sicily to Spain, and the king liked it so much that he ordered the author to be sent to him to work on the description of the kingdoms of Spain48.

Spannocchi went to the kingdom of Naples when Phillip II designated Marco Antonio Colonna captain general of the kingdom’s army in December 1574. He made plans of the fortifications of Brindisi and Taranto, but also, «modelli naturalissimi che si mandaron in Spagna» [very life-like models which were sent to Spain]49. The drawing of Brindisi in the Uffizi Gallery [FIG. 9] is undoubtedly by him, from when he accompanied Marco Antonio in 1575 to visit the fortifications of this city and that of Taranto50. The relation between the collection in the Uffizi Gallery and that of the Iscag is evident if we compare the plans of Brindisi in the latter, which includes one in colour

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FIG. 9 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Fortification of Brindisi. Anonimo del XVII sec. GDSU, Inv. nn 4284. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo.

and with another scale, with that in the Uffizi Gallery, because they are identical. In the Iscag there is a drawing of Taranto which has been attributed to Spannocchi51, although we have some doubts about this; however, there are none with regard to him having done the drawing of Taranto in the Uffizi Gallery [FIG. 10], with its characteristic buildings and the lands illustrated. We also think that the drawing of Vieste (Uffizi, nº 4229) is his. It is not that he was the only one to draw Neapolitan fortresses, as they were also done by Scipion Campi during these same years52, but the symbols used coincide with those Spannocchi used in works which have been identified as his, like those in the Descripción de las marinas de todo el reino de Sicilia [Description of the coasts of all the kingdom of Sicily], where we see the same way of representing religious buildings or houses.

Some of the plans of fortifications which are conserved in the library of the Royal Palace in Madrid corresponding to the kingdom of Naples can also be attributed to Spannocchi. They are part of the plans of fortifications of Italian, French and Dutch cities which belonged to cardinal Granvela53. The type of «symbols» used in some of the plans from this collection, like the images of a typical house to indicate a village, which appear for example in the plans of Gaeta, Polignano, or Cosenza are similar to the ones which appear in the plan of Augusta in the Description of the coasts54. Also the way the

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FIG. 10 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Fortification of Taranto. Anonimo del XVII sec. GDSU, Inv. nn 4283. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo.

coast, edges of the roads or the topography of the land are drawn is similar, and again we find similar drawings in the description of the coasts or in those made in Spain, to which the drawings of Fuenterrabía and Cádiz, conserved in the Iscag in Rome, belong. There are similarities we consider evident in the way monasteries are represented in some of these plans, like that of Mola (c. 20) or Bari (c. 49) and those in the Description. Brunetti has also related some of these plans of fortifications with those in the Iscag and those of the atlas in the National Library of France, where perhaps Tiburzio Spannocchi was the author of the first model55, because of the similarities with some of the drawings in the Description of the coasts in the kingdom of Sicily.

When Colonna was designated viceroy of Sicily in 1577, among the functions of our protagonist who was already a knight of the order of Malta and an expert engineer, was the description of the coasts of the kingdom by order of Marco Antonio to organize the defence of the island. The Description of the coasts of the whole kingdom of Sicily is one of the most beautiful atlases of the Renaissance, and he did it in two different periods, when he toured the island between 1578 and 1579, and almost twenty years later, when he completed it in 159656. As had happened with the models and drawings of Naples, Spannocchi’s Description of the coasts was considered a cartographic treasure and a collector’s item by the Spanish kings. From 1619 on it was kept in one of the

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FIG. 11 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Fortifica-

tion of Catania.

Anonimo del XVII sec. GDSU, Inv. nn 4275. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo.

drawers of a wooden stage which was made at that time to serve as scenery for an army of toy soldiers, both mounted and on foot, with pieces of artillery and fortresses to attack and defend, which had been given as a present to prince Phillip, the future Phillip IV, in 1614, by Ambrosio Spinola, captain general of the Spanish Netherlands. These geographical and urban descriptions were part of the education of a prince who had to prepare himself for war and be acquainted with the sciences necessary for winning57. In fact these same drawers of the stage, as well as Spannocchi’s manuscript also held the atlas of the Netherlands which Christopher Sgrooten had made between 1568 and 1573 for the Duke of Alba, as well as other maps and cartographic material58.

Also in the case of Sicily the collections in Florence and Rome contribute new information as to what Tiburzio sent to his brother Orazio. There is, for example, an exact coincidence between one of the drawings in the description of the coasts and one that is conserved in the Uffizi gallery, i.e. the plan of FIG. 12 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Fortification of Catania [FIGS. 11 and 12]. There are two plans of Catania. In Descripción de las marinas de todo el reino de Sicilia, 1596. BNE, Mss 788, fol. 29.

Syracuse in the Uffizi Gallery drawn by Span-

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 13 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Fortifica-

tion of Syracuse.

Anonimo del XVII sec. GDSU, Inv. nn 4288. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo.

nocchi, one would be the one which represents Giovan Antonio Salamone’s project for Syracuse, with the three bastions on the earthworks (nº 4286), and the other the one by Scipion Campi, with two bastions [FIG. 13] which were the ones finally constructed, in the same way that there are two plans in the Iscag59 with the model of the two bastions similar to the one Spannocchi drew in the Description [FIG. 14].

The enlargement process which some of the drawings underwent on the way to becoming an atlas, can be seen in the Roman collection, where some have a coloured version in another scale, as with the ones from Brindisi or those from Palamós, and perhaps the ones that are in colour are by Neroni, working to make his atlas, because of the similarity of the colours and their approach. In the ones on Palamós in the Iscag, both the representation of a religious build-

FIG. 14 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI, Fortification of Syracuse. In Descripción de las marinas de todo el reino de Sicilia, 1596. BNE, Mss 788, fol. 35.

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TIBURZIO SPANOCCHI drawing of Palamos and ampliation in color by MATTEO NERONI, in the process of creating the Atlas preserved in the BNCF. ISCAG, Biblioteca, 36.B.51, c. 85r and 167.

FIG. 15

ing inside the city, and the houses on the outside, are like those in Neroni’s atlas and other plans by Spannocchi, although the wind rose does not coincide with his usual way of indicating directions. In the drawing by Neroni there are fewer buildings illustrated, but those that there are coincide with the symbols used by Spannocchi to indicate a village, or even the line of the coast [FIGS. 15 and 16].

This brings us to another problem for which we lack documentation, except that which we can gather from studying the image, which is the relation between this Neroni atlas and some of Tiburzio’s drawings60. We believe that some of the drawings in the Neroni atlas, recently studied in depth by Lamberini, are based on the drawings by Spannocchi, as we saw when talking about the battle of Navarino, because for example the recourse of adding written notes in the margins coincides with his way of working and is absent from other drawings in the Florentine atlas, as well as the use of symbols which he used in other works. The fact that Neroni made the atlas in 1602 in the Rome of Pope Clement VIII, as a tribute to the pope, although it would end up in Florence61, would perhaps explain Spannocchi’s fears that others were taking advantage of his drawings, and thus his haste in his last years to send the writings and drawings so that they could be published under his name.

In spite of his desires for universal fame, before his death the secrecy machine had already begun its work, and the secretary of the Council of War took away all the drawings and writings which were related to the defence of the monarchy. Thus Sallustio Tarugi, bishop of Montepulciano and ambassador at the Spanish court of Fernando I de’ Medici, sadly informed Belisario Vinta, secretary of state of the Grand Duchy, when he announced both the death of the engineer in Madrid with «dispiacere universale» [universal regret], and the fact that what he had of Sicily and the kingdoms of Spain had been plundered62. The quality of the two correspondants, Tarugi and Vinta, gives us an idea of the degree of international fame that Tiburzio Spannocchi had attained. It is possible that in the end not many drawings and writings left Spain at the last minute, in

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Fortification of Palamos. In Atlante Neroni, 1602. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, Fondo Nazionale, II.I. 281, c.

103r. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo / Biblioteca Nazionale centrale di Firenze.

FIG. 16

spite of the interest of his friends from Siena and Florence, but we believe that those that left before form part of the collections of drawings which we have referred to in Florence and in Rome.

Spannocchi’s papers were especially valuable. We know that, just a few months before his death, he was granted lodgings in a house according to the king’s custom with the courtiers in his service in Madrid («casa de aposento»), where the court had just returned, precisely because the models which he had could not be in an inn «siendo de tanta importancia el estar a buen recaudo, y en parte que no se vean» [as it was so important for them to be well protected and somewhere where they could not be seen]63. The models took up a lot of room, the drawings less, but all had to be protected from the sight of possible enemies. Secrecy always prevented fame, as our engineer must have known when he unsuccessfully tried to evade it by giving his life’s work to be printed.

THE TRAVEL NOTEBOOKS OF AN ENGINEER

Phillip II wanted Spannocchi to do something during his visit to the kingdoms of Spain like he had done for Sicily, which fits perfectly with the king’s passion – also motivated by the need to know his kingdoms – for the views of cities and territories. Spannocchi also knew this in the year 1596, when he finally finished his Description of Sicily, when he wrote that the monarch should «tener de cada Reino semejante Relación, para poder según las ocasiones ver las particularidades…. y conforme a ella mandar proveer a los inconvenientes y molestias que las malas vecindades suelen causar» [have a similar Record of each Kingdom, to be able depending on the occasion to see the particularities … and order accordingly the remedies for the inconvenciences and problems that bad neighbours tend to cause]64. He offered the future Phillip III «hazer otro tanto en la descricion destos felices Reinos de España, pues la maior parte dellos tengo andado, y tomado en cada lugar observaciones con cuidado, como Su Magd. y V.A. podrán en

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parte aver visto, en los pedaços que hasta aquí se me an ofrecido presentarles» [«to do the same in the description of these happy Kingdoms of Spain, as I have covered the greater part of them, and have taken careful observations in each place, as Your Majesty and Your Highness may have seen, in the pieces which I have been able to present up to now»]65.

These pieces are what we know of his work in Spain, mostly conserved in the General Archive of Simancas. We conserve the sketches of some of them, which he used as the basis of the drawings presented to the king and his War Council, in a bundle of papers which is a sort of workbook, with sketches drawn from life, of different fortifications, as well as the draft of the written notes which accompanied the drawings66. We knew about some sketches in the marFIG. 17 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Benasque Castle, 1592.

España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo gins of his records of the Aljaferia Palace, General de Simancas. GYM, 00356, 189, 01.

Cadiz or Jaca67, but not such a quantity of proof of his work during the journeys as we see in this bundle. His custom was to reserve the right part of the paper for his writings, and the left for his sketches, although on some occasions, as seen in the passes of the Pyrenees, Benasque [FIG. 17] or in the view of Canfranc, the drawing occupies more space68.

He described with his drawings different types of architecture and lands, and so, as soon as he arrived in Spain in 1580 they sent him to Fuenterrabía, to do the same as he had done in Sicily, «deseños de la marina» [«drawings of the coast»] of the province of Guipúzcoa, as well as dealing with the fortifications. He did the outline of two hills, and sent the king «le perspettive retrattate da tre parti che pure con ese si dimostra meglio il sito suo» [the perspective from three sides to give a better view of the site]69. But just afterwards, in 1582, he was doing a plan and description of Aranjuez and in 1584 views and drawings of El Escorial and other places, which are unknown to us70. He had great versatility, as we can see in the cited bundle, in which there is from the picture of a balcony to the sketch of the square and port of Cadiz, drawings of the Val d’Aran, or details of the current state of the Aljafería Palace. Probably these papers were some that the secretary of the war council took away before Tiburzio’s death, because they belong to different dates, which we deduce mostly from the dates of his journeys. Thus, some of those of Cadiz are from 1587 and others from 1593, those from the Castel León castle and the Val d’Aran are from 159471, and from the same year the lookout from the castle in Teruel, a city he visited, like Albarracín, when he was sent to plan two towers in the

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 18 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Profile of part of the Aljafería in Zaragoza, 1593. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas.

SGU, 03352-78.

FIG. 19 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Balcony of the Benasque Castle, 1593. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. SGU, 03352-69.

port of los Alfaques72. The section of the walls and ditch of the Aljafería Palace is from 1593, the sketches of different parts of the Aljafería Palace are from 1592, the city walls of Pamplona with its vaults between counterforts is from1588, the outline of the city walls of Benasque, with the cellar, barbican and parapet as it was is from 1593, as are the sketch of a balcony in Benasque [FIG. 19] or that of the Tower of the Baths73.

In contrast they are not sketches, but finished drawings to serve as instructions for the construction of the walls of Palma de Mallorca, those of how this fortification had to be continued74. Although we are not here going to analyze all the drawings and records from this bundle, which would represent different «workbooks» of the engineer during several years, we would like to make some comments on the ones on Mallorca, because they show how Spannocchi had standardized his fortification projects which he considered applicable to any site, something that reality proved wrong on occasions, especially if, as in this case, the engineer had not visited the place and therefore lacked the knowledge which only seeing something with one’s own eyes can give. But he was already so famous when he did them that, as happened in a project for Cartagena de Indias, his decision had to be accepted, although in the case of Mallorca the viceroy Zanoguera knew how to resolve the problem quite adequately.

Mallorca was «ciudad de buenos edificios, sitio y muralla» [a city of good buildings, location and walls] when it was visited by Don John of Austria75. The fortification of Mal-

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lorca was already considered so important in 1574 that a better engineer than Juan Bautista Antonelli was required to be sent, and even the secretary Delgado suggested that the Duke of Urbino and the Duke of Savoy gave up one of theirs76. This same year Jacome Palearo Fratin was sent77, and ten years later the responsibility for the fortification continued in the hands of this family of engineers, because it had fallen to his brother Jorge78. In 1588 the viceroy Luis Vich gave impetus to the fortification, paid equally between the king and the kingdom79, and years later it was the viceroy Fernando Zanoguera who transformed it showing the experience he had gained as the fortifying governor of Ibiza. Antonio Saura was the master builder, as he had also been in Ibiza and probably he was the one who made the models and records that Zanoguerra FIG. 20 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Drawings for the walls of sent to the court in 1600 so that it Palma de Mallorca in 1601. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. could all be consulted with commander SGU, 03352-16 y 16-01.

Spannocchi who was the one that did the drawings of what had to be done.

Fernando Zanoguera was writing a short history of the fortification in which he recalled that Giovan Battista Calvi had designed the first bastions in 1554, and that after the visit of Don John of Austria in 1566 the design of the fortification had been done by Jacome Palearo Fratin. It is an interesting story, because he writes it to argue against Spannocchi’s proposal, as Calvi and Fratin were such great engineers, that the way of building the fortification should continue to be of earth and fascine, with a covering of stone. As he knew what he was talking about, Zanoguera made it clear that he was not talking about plans, as the measurements had certainly changed over time, as he had been able to confirm in Ibiza with the differences between what was carried out by Calvi and what had been designed by Fratin80, what he was talking about was the building system. For this reason there was no need for the «bóvedas de contrafuerte pues suple en lugar dellas el terrapleno» [vaults of counterforts as they were replaced by the terreplein ], although in places like Mallorca, Zanoguerra said, «me paresce estremada y Ingeniosa la invençion dellas del dicho comendador» [the inventions of the said commander seem to me to be extremely ingenious], and almost as a concession, stated that these buttresses could be used in the new walls that had to be built. One of the interesting comments about Spannocchi who designed plans almost with a template, and without knowing the sites, is that the viceroy said that if Tiburzio «viesse estas obras tengo para mi que aprovaria lo hecho

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 21 TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI. Project for the fortification of Palma de Mallorca, 1602. España. Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas. SGU, 03352-24.

y lo que está referido aquí dellas» [«saw these works I am sure he would approve of what has been done and what is said here about them»]81.

As far as we know, he didn’t go to Mallorca because he was already at that time, as chief engineer, making projects for places he didn’t know, but he worked in the same way with prior sketches [FIG. 20], until he achieved a definitive plan, which must be the original of the drawing sent to Mallorca [FIG. 21], to which the viceroy Zanoguera was referring in September 1602 when he wrote that the plan and section which arrived with the instructions signed by commander Tiburzio were being followed and were being executed by the master builder Antonio Saura82. In these drawing for Palma de Mallorca we see the type of stairs and vaults which Spannocchi generally used in his projects. The counterforts with vaults in the drawing for Palma are practically the same as those of the walls of Cádiz83, and similar to those which he proposed for Augusta, Catania and Messina in his Description of the coasts when he finished the manuscript in 1596.

In the complex scenario in which the profession of engineer was becoming defined, his condition as a nobleman and his education made him superior to others in the same profession, proof of which can be seen in his numerous writings, some of which have been published. To this must be added his capacity for measuring scientifically, drawing and describing cities and territories with words and images. This would contribute to cementing the triumph in the Spanish court and the international fame of Tiburzio Spannocchi, court engineer, knight of the order of Malta and Chief engineer of the Kingdoms of Spain.

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ABBREVIATIONS

AGS: Archivo General de Simancas.

SGU: Secretaría de Guerra.

ASSi: Archivio di Stato di Siena.

IHCM: Instituto de Historia y Cultura Militar.

GDSU: Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi.

ISCAG: Istituto Storico di Cultura dell’Arma del Genio.

BNCF: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.

BNE: Biblioteca Nacional de España.

BPRM: Biblioteca del Palacio Real de Madrid.

NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

acamara@geo.uned.es SÁNCHEZ GIJÓN et al., 2000, p. 53.

AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 263, f. 169. Spannocchi, after referring to the presents recieved and what other engineers earn, remembers that he can also have the forty ducats that he had in Sicily confirmed, as had been done in Milan with Fratin and with «Pelegrin que con servir aquí le comen en Milán» [Pellegrino who by serving here can feed his household, in Milan].

Tibaldi had arrived at the Spanish court in June 1586, and would stay in Spain for ten years, working as a painter, until his return to Milan in 1596, dying that same year. A. BURATTI MAZZOTTA, 1990; M. SCHOLZ, 1984. On the information requested by the king to the governor of Milan on this painter and architect before summoning him to Spain, see CÁMARA, 1998, p. 50.

The Florentine Camillo Camiliani made the report on the towers between 1583 and 1585 on the orders of Marco Antonio Colonna. He was sent to Spain in 1602 with a letter of recommendation from Ferdinando I de’ Medici, which states that captain Camillo Camiliani is his vassal, an engineer and a nobleman, and that he will serve Phillip III, and he is granted a passport so that the governments, republics and lords and princes through whose territory he passes facilitate his journey. He arrived in Spain at the end of 1603 and is documented to have stayed until 1608. See GAZZÈ, 2012, p. 42, and especially BOSCH BALLBONA, 2013-2014.

ANTONIO DE HERRERA, Cinco libros de la historia de Portugal… 1591, the king carried in his hand a drawing by the engineer «en que estava traçado este exercito de la manera que iva ordenado caminando» [in which this army was drawn in the way that it was formed while marching]. In CÁMARA, 2014a, p. 353.

GONZÁLEZ GARCÍA, 2007.

For a summary of his career see CÁMARA, 1988.

On this training of princes and gentlemen in painting, as well as other arts, see BOUZA, 2003, pp. 121-13. Books were written like the one by the painter Alessandro Allori, an almost exact contemporary of Spannocchi, who wrote a Ragionamenti delle regole del disegno [Reasoning on the rules of drawing], to help all those gentlemen from illustrious families who asked him to teach them to draw. Although focussed on the human body, it reflects the custom that drawing was part of a nobleman’s education. BAROCCHI, 1979, pp. 1941-1982.

GIOVAN BATTISTA ARMENINI, De’ veri precetti della pittura, Ravenna, 1587. In BAROCCHI, 1979, p. 2006.

MORENO GALLEGO, 2005.

POLITI, 1624 pp. 310-11.

PEPPER and ADAMS, 1986.

NICOLAI, 2006 and 2009.

NICOLAI, 2006, p. 289 and 2009 passim. In the Description of the coasts Spannocchi recalls that the fleets of the king of Spain, the Republic of Venice and the Pope joined together in the city of Messina, and were abundantly supplied in this «singularissimo Puerto» [extraordinary Port] where «toda la máquina de la gloriosa ympresa de la santa liga como lo sabemos los que en aquella sazón ally nos hallamos» [all the machinery of the glorious undertaking of the Holy League as those who were present on that occasion know] was gathered together. Descripción, f. 4. This corresponds to the part of the manuscript which was written in Spanish.

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15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

NICOLAI, 2009, 273, 274, 279. Among the letters published by this author, there is one from 16th June 1574 in which Tiburzio writes that «ho colorito il corno sinistro della nostra armata, ho dato a tutto il mare la prima mano et ho fornito le vele alle galere turchesche et al paese manca l’ultima mano». [I have coloured the left flank of our fleet, I have given the first coat to the whole sea and I have supplied the sails to the Turkish galleons and the last coat to the land is missing]. This in one painting, which he calls a «carta» [chart], in the second « porrò incominciare il paese… intanto manderó boza a v. E. del componimento de le galere le quali potrà così ricorreggere et aggiogniere con scrivermi dentro la volontà sua…»[I will be able to begin the land… meanwhile I will send a sketch to your Excellency of the formation of the galleons which you will be able to correct and update by writing your wishes on it]. On 26th June he had already sent Colonna «il schizzo de la seconda carta» [the sketch of the second chart], so that Marco Antonio could give his opinion before beginning to paint the galleons.

«In questo primo quadro sta fornita l’armata turchescha et il mare nel quale è stata una longa fática, si come quando l’E. V. lo vegga cognioscerà vi è solo a fornire il rimanente dell’armata cristiana». [In this first painting the Turkish fleet is completed and the sea which has been a long job, so that when your Excellency sees it only the rest of the Christian fleet will be left to do]. In a letter of 15th August 1574 Spannocchi reported that the second painting had been finished. Some of these letters have also been published by POLTO, 2007.

There are doubts about the identity of this painter «Paolo». NICOLAI, 2009, p. 273.

NICOLAI, 2009.

GIULIO MANCINI, Ragguaglio compendioso della Città di Siena, con cui e’ descritta, in riguardo alla situazione Geográfica, et Astronómica, et al Materiale Formale al Sacro, e Profano, Civile, Político e Militare, et insieme con le Notizie delle Persone Riguardevoli della stessa… Compilato nell’anno 1615 dall’Insigne Filosofo, e Medico Giulio Mancini, che fu poi Medico di Papa Urbano VIII. A copy by Andrea Falorsi of the year 1720. ASSi, Manoscriti D60, p. 148.

CAPPONI, 2008, pp. 246-247. MULCAHY, 2006, this authoress not only studies the work of Titian but also how the series of paintings by Luca Cambiaso was possibly given as a present by Giovanni Andrea Doria to the Royal Secretary Antonio Pérez, and then acquired by the king. See also KAMEN, 2009, p. 239, who discards that the paintings were commissioned by the king to Cambiaso, who in that case would execute them between 1583 and 1585, as Checa and others say (see note 21).

MARÍAS, 2007-2008.

CHECA, 2004.

The one in the gallery of maps in the Vatican has been related to the tapestries commissioned by Juan Andrea Doria on the Battle of Lepanto designed by Luca Cambiaso and Lazzaro Calvi. See TOSINI, 1998.

POLITI, 1624, p. 311.

POLITI, 1624, p. 312, «la quale mandata dal Sig. Marc’Antonio a qué Principi Christiani, a’ quali bisognò, venne a sgraviarsi dalle imputationi, che erano a S. E. data da alcuni malevoli» [which sent by Marco Antonio to these Christian princes who needed it, made up for the imputations which were directed at his Excellency by some intriguers].

It had no bastions and was of little use according to Guglielmotti, so they attacked it almost for sport, at the command of Alejandro Farnesio, Prince of Parma, according to the explanation which accompanies the drawing of the plan of the fort.

However, the Turks held strong and defended it as the Christians inexplicably had left roads by which the defenders could receive reinforcements, so that they had to retreat, and it was then that Don John of Austria made Marco Antonio land to help those who were retreating. GUGLIELMOTTI, 1862, pp. 418-420.

LUPO, 1993, especially pp. 252-254.

GARCÍA HERNÁN, 2010.

Neither NICOLAI, 2009, p. 279 nor POLTO, 2007, who reproduce the letter of 15th August 1574, have differentiated this work from the others, and have considered it part of those referring to Lepanto, in spite of the fact that Spannocchi clearly writes that he is referring to La Goleta, and writes the name of this fortress in capital letters.

NICOLAI, 2009, p. 279. Cardinal Pacheco, the one who was shown the painting, is cardinal Francisco Pacheco de Toledo, archbishop of Burgos, with close relations with the papacy, but also with the Spanish court. Brief summary of his career in MORONI, 1851, pp. 98-99, and in GONZÁLEZ DÁVILA, 1650, pp. 94 and 95.

On the engravings of these years on the siege of La Goleta, see VILAR, 1991, pp. 380-390. The engraving from Simancas which we are reproducing is dated 7th August 1574 and the letter by Tiburzio is of 15th August 1574, but if we consult the book by Vilar (p. 389), who found three versions of the same engraving in the British Library (BL), we can see that at least two of them indicate that the siege was in August 1574, not that the engraving is from that date, so that they could be engravings that reflect the drawing done by Spannocchi in August 1574, to which he refers in his letter to Colonna.

However, the drawing of La Goleta attributed to Serbelloni, conserved in the Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, ms. 19661, from the beginning of 1574, in the manuscript of Le Poivre, and reproduced by AKACHA and GARULLI, 1994, p. 101, is not the one used by Neroni, who probably used the one in the Uffizi, with Serbelloni’s triangular ravelin, which may come from the drawings sent by Spannocchi to his brother, and used for this painting of La Goleta he mentions. The presence of the drawings of Serbelloni in the manuscripts of Le Poivre in Brussels and Madrid, confirm the communication by the engineer of the information on his reforms in La Goleta. On the intervention of Paciotto or Alonso Pimentel in the drawings of La Goleta, and the debate on ramparts or pincer system, see CASTRO FERNÁNDEZ and MATEO DE CASTRO, 2015.

CAPPONI, 2008, says that the fresco of Lepanto in El Viso was destroyed in an earthquake in the eighteenth century. Moreover the frescoes of the lower gallery of the patio in this palace were completed in 1585 and those of the upper gallery in 1586.

AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 578, f. 232, 27th July 1600, «Tiburcio Spanoqui dize que ha treinta y dos años que sirve a Vra. Magd. continuadamente, los onze en ytalia en el Reino de Nápoles Armadas de Levante y Reino de Sicilia… y los veinte y un años en estos Reinos de Spaña con el marqués de Sta. Cruz en las jornadas de Philipe Stroçi y toma de la Tercera…» [«Tiburcio Spanoqui says that he has continuously served your Majesty for thirty-two years, eleven in the Kingdom of Naples Fleets of the Levant and Kingdom of Sicily… and twenty-one in these Kingdoms of Spain with the Marquis of Santa Cruz in the expeditions of Philipe Stroçi and the taking of Terceira …»].

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34. On the paintings in the hall and the «capture of Strozzi», see BROWN, 1998, especially pp. 29-33. The conquest of the Azores

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

was painted by Niccolò Granello, «cuyos detalles pintorescos de primer término nos sorprenden por la exquisitez miniaturista y casi preciosista con que están realizadas» [the pictorial details of which in the foreground surprise us with their exquisite almost precieuse miniaturist style], as GARCÍA-FRÍAS, 2004 states, p. 122. García Frías mentions the possibility that, although no drawings are known of the Capture of Filippo Strozzi and the Conquest of Angra, they must have existed, and points out the documentary character they possess. He suggests the possibility that the model could have been the engraving which is included in the work by Mosquera de Figueroa Comentario en breve compendio de disciplina militar en que se escribe la jornada de las islas de las Azores, Madrid, 1596. On the paintings in the Hall of Battles see BUSTAMANTE, 2011.

RODRÍGUEZ DE DIEGO, 1989, p. 69. This author points out how one of the aims of the archive was to be «memoria de la antigüedad» [ recorded memory of the past], which is detailed in chapter 8 of the ordinances, and reproduces a letter from Juan Berzosa in 1573, referring to the projects of Diego de Ayala for the Simancas archive, from which we can extract for our argument that he states that with regard to history «se ha de tener ojo por la falta que han tenido esos reynos della, y mi fin fue siempre en la recollection destas escripturas… pintar todo lo que concerniere a la historia…» [care must be taken because of the lack of it in these kingdoms, and my aim was always to collect these writings…to paint all that concerns history…].

This «paint» history, and that it should be true and documented, would be in line with our comments on some historical paintings.

On Cristóbal Lechuga, see GIANNINI, 2000. Lechuga on proposing an academy of engineers in Milan, established among many other functions, how to work on the fortifications, war or machines, the «descripciones de paises» [descriptions of countries], and that the academy would be installed in a house with large galleries in which the kingdoms and provinces would be painted. On this academy in the context of the engineering profession, see CÁMARA, 1981, pp. 265-266.

What Politi tells us about the protagonism of Spannocchi in the Azores is almost heroic and he condemns Antonio de Herrera, when writing about this battle, for having omitted the protagonism of Tiburzio, and even for having used a speech made by Spannocchi without citing him. POLITI, 1624, pp. 314-317.

MOSQUERA DE FIGUEROA, 1992, p. 102.

MOSQUERA DE FIGUEROA, 1596, ff. 70vº y 71. It subsequently includes the engraving with «diseño del assalto y desembarcadero de nuestras galeras, zabras, y barcas» [drawing of the attack and disembarkation of our galleons, zabras and smaller ships].

MOSQUERA DE FIGUEROA, f. 181 vº.

LÓPEZ TORRIJOS, 2004, p. 135.

LÓPEZ TORRIJOS, 2008, pp. 181 and 182.

ISCAG, Biblioteca, 36.B.51 y GDSU, Anonimo sec. XVII. FARA, 1989, had already associated the drawings in the Iscag and the Uffizi Gallery to Tiburzio Spannocchi, and both in turn to Matteo Neroni. About these drawings also see, MARINO, 2005, CAPALBI, 2005, BRUNETTI, 2006a, and 2006b, FORLANI TEMPESTI, 1983 and LAMBERINI, 2013.

FARA, 1989, pp. 28-29 and MAZZAMUTO, 1986, p. 455.

He knew in whose hands he was placing his legacy, by means of which he wanted to reach posterity, because, as he stated, nothing interested him as much as this publication in the last years of his life. His brother Orazio, before becoming bishop of Chiuci, was a doctor of letters, and worked as an auditor for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, then advisor to several prelates, and to William Duke of Bavaria, in whose service he worked until Paul V designated him bishop of Chiuci, where he stayed until his death in 1620. UGURGIERI AZZOLINI, 1649, first part, p. 184.

All the quotes from his letters in POLITI, 1624, pp. 321 and 322.

Idem p. 322.

POLITI, 1624, p. 313. «Doppo che el Rè Felippo II. Hebbe veduti i disegni delle sopradette giornate, oltre all’haver conosciuto molto meglio il valore del Colonna, anco nelle cose di mare, si compiacque tanto di quei disegni, e di quelle sottilissime dimostrationi, fatte dal Cavaliere con la penna con vaghissime miniature, che le ritenne poi sempre sin che visse consitte con tricciuoli, e bullettine d’oro nella sua più segreta galleria, contigua alla Camera della sua Alcova, a vista degli occhi suoi» [After King Phillip II had seen the drawings of the afore-mentioned battles, as well as having better appreciated the value of Colonna, also in maritime affairs, he had liked the drawings so much, and the fine demonstrations, made by the Nobleman with the quill and attractive miniatures, that he always kept them without putting cord and gold stud bookmarks in them in his most secret gallery, next to his room, and in his sight].

POLITI, 1624, p. 312.

BAZZANO, 2001, pp. 150-151.

MAZZAMUTO, 1986, p. 451. Citing G. C. SPEZIALE, Storia militare di Taranto negli ultimi cinque secoli, Bari, 1930. In 1574 he added a «puntone» [pointed tip of the bastion] to the fortification of Otranto, which is shown in one of the drawings in the Uffizi Gallery according to BRUNETTI, 2001, who refers to drawing 4241 A, del Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, pp.

38-39.

AGS, Estado, leg. 1065, f. 37. Campi reported on the cities he had visited in Naples and Sicily, and that he had drawn using the colours violet, red, green...

Library of the Royal Palace Madrid (BPRM), MAP/416, 1-53. Granvela left the viceroyship in 1575, and was for a time in Rome, until 1578, to become from 1579 on state coucillor and president of the Council of Italy. Brunetti studied the drawings of the viceroyship of Naples in this collection, perhaps linked to the activity of Granvela as governor. See BRUNETTI, 2007.

BPRM, MAP/416, c.2, c.4, c. 9, c. 19, and TIBURCIO SPANOQUI, Descripcion de las marinas de todo el reino de Sicilia. Con otras importantes declaraciones notadas por el Cavallero Tiburcio Spanoqui del Abito de San Juan Gentilhombre de la Casa de su Magestad. 1596. BNE, Ms. 788, f. 30v y 31.

BRUNETTI, 2007, p. 8, and 2006b.

CÁMARA, 2003.

See in this same book the chapter by M. A. VÁZQUEZ MANASSERO. SÁENZ DE MIERA, 1994, p. 279.

374

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

59. Reproduced by FARA, 1989, pp. 20 and 21.

60. On this atlas and its author see LAMBERINI, 1989 and 2013. Matteo Neroni was the nephew of the Neroni from whom Span-

nocchi got his training, although he was not educated by his uncle.

61. LAMBERINI, 2013, p. 32.

62. The letter is of 24th November 1606, and Tiburzio had died on 4th of this same month. He regrets that he hoped «mandasse

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

77.

78.

79.

80.

81.

82.

83.

a Siena alcune sue fatiche importante et curiose sopra tutte le fortezze, porti, et luoghi di Sicilia, et di questi Regni di Spagna» [to send his most important and curious works especially the fortresses, ports and sites in Sicily, and these Kingdoms of Spain]. In spite of what Tiburzio promised before dying he had been «quasi spogliato delle cose suddette et di tutti i disegni et scriture prima che morisi» [almost stripped of the things mentioned and of all the drawings and writings before dying] by the Secretary of the War Council. Documento del Archivo Mediceo en VVAA 1980, p. 80.

IHCM, Colección Aparici, Citing the section of Sea and land (currently War and Coasts) in AGS, leg. 654.

Descripción…, Dedication to the prince.

Idem.

AGS, Secretaría de Guerra (SGU), leg. 03352. I would like to thank Isabel Aguirre, Head of the Department of References of the General Archive of Simancas, who years ago told me of the existence of this bundle, the contents of which did not correspond to the section where it was conserved.

CÁMARA, 1994, 1997, 2006 and 2014b.

Some of those cited: AGS, Santa Elena pass, MPD, 06, 114, Torrolla pass MPD, 06, 111, view of Canfranc MPD, 06, 113, plan of Castle in Canfranc, MPD 06, 057.

AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 110, ff. 20 a 22. There are two drawings of Fuenterrabía in the Iscag in Rome, which we believe must be by him, although they are probably from a later date, when between 1595 and 1597 he went back to Fuenterrabía to supervise the works. AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 437, ff. 117 and 163, leg. 460, f. 286, and leg. 486, f. 254. On the state of the works in 1588, idem, leg. 227, f. 296 and 297.

J. APARICI Y GARCÍA, Continuación del informe… tercera parte. Trata de las biografías de los ingenieros que existieron en España en el siglo XVI. Madrid, Memorial de Ingenieros, tomo VI, 1851, p. 50. On the fact that he was working on the «la planta y descricion de Aranjuez por orden de V. M.» [the plan and description of Aranjuez on Your Majesty’s orders, see AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 171, f. 147.

For the relevance they have to understand the engineers’ working system for measuring the territory, we have dealt with the drawings of Castel León and the Val d’Aran in CÁMARA, 2006 and 2015.

AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 398, f. 223. Spannocchi al rey desde Zaragoza, 7th February 1594.

AGS, SGU, leg. 03352. The walls and ditch of the Aljafería Palace 79, the sketches with the different parts of the Aljafería Palace 35, the walls of Pamplona with its vaults between buttresses 32, the outline of the walls of Benasque, with the cellar, barbican and parapet as they were 78, the balcony in Benasque 69, the tower of the Baths 73, the lookout of the castle in Teruel 77. All these drawings can be seen on the page in the General Archive of Simancas.

AGS, SGU, leg. 03352. The plan of the walls, 16, 01 y 02, the plan of the wall and two parapets and barracks 15, the elevation of the wall 16 (which is a sketch) are from 1601 when in February of that year the cost of the walls for this city were being estimated, from 1602, 4, which presents a perfectly finished drawing to serve as a guide to the construction for the master builders and the viceroy himself.

CABRERA, 1998, p. 415.

IHCM, Colección Aparici, tomo VI, p. 4.

Memoria de lo que se ha de hazer en la fortificación de Mallorca durante mi absencia o hasta que su Magd. mande otra cosa, es lo siguiente. Mallorca, 20th October 1575. AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 79, f. 37.

Lo que ocurre al Ingeniero Jorge fratin çerca de la fortificaçion de Mallorca e ibyça. 1st January 1584. AGS, Guerra Moderna, leg. 3352, s. f.

Information on the fortification in 1588 in AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 234, ff. 147-151.

On Ibiza, COBOS and CÁMARA, 2008.

AGS, Guerra y Marina, leg. 599, f. 106. Mallorca, 11th May 1601.

AGS, Guera y Marina, leg. 599, f. 117. Mallorca, 27th September 1602.

AGS, SGU 03352, 90 and 91.

THE DRAWINGS OF COMMANDER TIBURZIO SPANNOCCHI, CHIEF ENGINEER OF THE KINGDOMS OF SPAIN

375

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partes. Por el capitán Christoval de Rojas, Ingeniero del Rey nuestro señor, Madrid, Luis Sánchez.

SAÉNZ DE MIERA, J.

(1994), «Lo raro del orbe. Objetos de arte y maravillas en el Alcázar de Madrid», in F. CHECA

(ed.), El Real Alcázar de Madrid, Madrid, Nerea.

SÁNCHEZ GIJÓN, A., COBOS, F., DE CASTRO, J. (2000),

Luis Escrivá. Su Apología y la fortificación imperial, Valencia,

Generalitat Valenciana.

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SCHOLZ. M.

(1984), «New documents on Pellegrino Tibaldi in Spain», The Burlington Magazine, CXXVI, nº 981,

pp. 766-768.

SEVERAL AUTHORS (1980), Firenze e la Toscana dei Medici nell’Europa del Cinquecento. La corte il mare i mercanti.

La rinascita della Scienza. Editoria e Società. Astrologia, magia e alchimia, Florence, Electa.

SOZZINI, A. G. (1842), Il sucesso delle rivoluzioni della città di siena d’imperiale franzese e di franzese imperiale (1585),

Archivio Storico Italiano, Volume II, Florence, Gio Pietro Vieussux, 1842.

TOSINI, P.

(1998), «La flota cristiana regresa a Corfú tras la batalla de Lepanto», in L. RIBOT (a cura di), Felipe II,

un monarca y su época. Las tierras y los hombres del rey, Madrid, Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, pp. 407-408.

UGURGIERI AZZOLINI, I.

(1649), Le Pompe sanesi, o vero relazione delli huomini, e donned illustri di Siena, e suo

stato,... parte seconda, Pistoia, Pier Antonio Fortunati.

VERRIER, F.

(1997), Les armes de Minerve. L’Humanisme militaire dans l’Italie du XVI siècle, París, Presses de l’U-

niversité de Paris-Sorbonne.

VILAR, J. B. (1991), Mapas, planos y fortificaciones hispánicos de Túnez (s. XVI-XIX), Madrid, Instituto de Cooperación

con el Mundo Árabe.

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IV DIGITAL HUMANITIES IN THE DIMH PROJECT

16 Modelling, Access and Visualization in the DIMH Spanish Project ANA GARCÍA SERRANO and ÁNGEL CASTELLANOS1 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Translation: ANA GARCÍA SERRANO and ÁNGEL CASTELLANOS / Editing: MARK HALLET

ABSTRACT

Content organization techniques have attracted a great deal of interest in the field of Digital Humanities (DH). However, their adaptation is usually difficult and expensive to achieve. In this context, the application of the Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) technique for the modelling and organization of contents related to the DIMH corpus is proposed.

FCA takes advantage of a well-founded mathematical background to organize the corpus content automatically by means of a conceptual model inferred from the features related to the contents. An evaluation of the results obtained has been carried out, making use of a visualization framework especially developed for this work. The evaluation have shown the viability of FCA for this scenario, obtaining valuable and encouraging results.

KEYWORDS

Metadata, Information processing, Contents Organization, Digital Humanities.

383

INTRODUCTION

The web is currently a significant source of information but even if initially it is easy to search for, research and exploit in the discovery of relevant information or data it raises serious difficulties. We are used to dealing with information retrieval using applications that generally apply a search based on the keyword paradigm, in which the search algorithm generates a list of results sorted with some degree of accuracy, and from where the user selects the most relevant according to the information request. However, this list of results can sometimes hide potentially relevant results, mainly because the technology based on keywords appearing in the text (or multimedia documents) does not take into account the representative concepts of the content.

a FIG. 1 (a) Example metadata (ID 736 116) of the Benasque castle plane from Tiburcio Spanoqui ([https://es.wikipedia.org/w iki/Tiburzio_Spannocchi], accessed 20/09/2015). (b and c) Image described by the metadata. EspaĂąa.

Ministerio de EducaciĂłn, Cultura y Deporte. Archivo General de Simancas.

GYM, 00356, 189, 01 y 00356, 189, 02.

b

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A solution offered by new approaches is based on the use of metadata (basically they are pairs consisting of class and value), in which the values range from keywords to conceptual terms. When the classes or types are denoted by labels that belong to a standard, that are able to have terms as values from thesauri, from lists of terminology in a precise area of knowledge or even can be selected automatically from knowledge organization systems. This already represents a breakthrough in terms of accuracy and efficiency of information retrieval systems. An example of use of metadata is the digital collection of maps, plans and drawings of the General Archive of Simancas (AGS) with over 7,000 documented images with metadata of cartographic material, graphic, three-dimensional objects and texts, one of which is shown in Figure 1 ([http://www.mcu.es/ccbae/es/mapas/principal.cmd], accessed 20/09/2015).

Besides the interoperability between data being facilitated if the metadata values are assigned to a standard such as that of the Getty thesaurus for art and architecture, artists, cultural objects or geographical names ([https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/], accessed 15/09/2015). However the construction of these resources is complex and subject to many refinements, mainly because the schemes of the metadata are often too generic. It happens many times that in order to build the instances of the schemes (metadata schemes with specific values related to a particular object, such as a writer, map etc.) it is necessary to redefine the scheme.

There are different research initiatives that aim to facilitate access and the display of information included on the web for the Digital Humanities (DG). They are framed in the areas of the semantic web, information retrieval, user interaction and the general knowledge of organization systems. One such área of research, was developed under El dibujante ingeniero al servicio de la monarquía hispánica. Siglos XVI-XVIII - DIMH (MINECO HAR2012-31117 project, [http://dimh.hypotheses.org], accessed 15/09/2015) that it is presented in this chapter after a brief introduction of related areas of research.

DATA AND INFORMATION ACCESS AND KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION

To make the web content interoperable and accessible new standards for the formalization of the contents of the documents (which populate the web 1.0) in the «web of data», have been defined. This can be reached by using technologies for natural language processing, by the definition and management of ontologies, or by the development of linguistic and knowledge-based resources mainly promoted by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) ([http://www.w3c.es/Consorcio/mision], accessed 15/09/2015).

Knowledge Organization The objective of organizing and structuring information is to identify and create models based on knowledge-based processing techniques: classification, clustering and others.

With these techniques the automated processing results are neither neutral nor self-contained and are usually influenced by the task for which they were defined.

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Classification techniques allow the organization of collections of objects, as well as the identification of their common and differentiating characteristics and will denote objects consistently. A classification model widely used is the taxonomy for the denotation of objects (each label in the taxonomy provides a controlled vocabulary). In Figure 2 a partial view of the Science taxonomy is shown.

Formal Ciencia

Lógica Matemática

Natural Práctica

Cultural

FIG. 2

Física Química Biología Psicología individual Psicología social Sociología Economía Ciencias políticas Historia material Historia de las ideas

Taxonomy of science (partial view).

Ontologies are knowledge models that structure the information into a hierarchy.

They are difficult to build but they are very useful! However, before the construction of both taxonomies and ontologies it is necessary to have all the knowledge related to the objects to be organized and classified.

More specifically, an ontology is an explicit formal description of objects in a domain (Gruber 1993) which is structured on the basis of (1) the domain classes or concepts, so that a subclass is more specific than its superclass concepts, (2) slots or properties of each concept describing the characteristics and attributes (also known as roles or properties) and (3) facets or restrictions on slots (also called constraint roles), which define the type of value, its cardinality, its domain or range etc. The hierarchy between classes of an ontology is transitive and each class is related to its subclasses using the is-a relationship. Instances are leaves in the hierarchy, which represent specific objects.

A well known example is the wine public ontology (The wine ontology, N. Noy, [http://protege.stanford.edu/publications/ontology_development/ontology101-noymcguinness.html], accessed 15/09/2015). There are software tools for the construction and management of ontologies such as Protégè ([http://protege.stanford.edu/], accessed 15/09/2015), and others. An example of the wine ontology management with Protégè is shown in Figure 3.

Other public ontologies are: FOF, DAML, UNSPSC, RosettaNet, DMOZ, CyC, etc. that are used to categorize sites (such as in Yahoo) or products (such as in Amazon.com).

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Hardcopy of the wine ontology with Protégè ([http://iswc2003.semanticweb.org/pdf/Protege-OWL-TutorialISWC03.pdf], accessed 15/09/2015).

FIG. 3

An important aspect of ontologies is that they are the groundwork for building the semantic web, and some of them allow the population of the Linked Open Data Cloud (LOD Cloud). For example in DBpedia ([http://wiki.dbpedia.org/Documentation], accessed 21/09/2015) a huge amount of semantic information from the English Wikipedia has been generated. Since June 2011, the information generation process also extracts data from 15 versions of Wikipedia (15 languages). One of them is the Spanish ([http://es.dbpedia.org/sparql], accessed 15/09/2015) that allows queries on over 100 million subjects including concepts (in the form of RDF triples).

In DBpedia as well as in any other LOD resource for accessing the formally represented data (e.g. in Resource Description Framework or RDF) the use of a standard query language, the SPARQL is necessary (intended for use by applications). An extracted sample from [http://es.dbpedia.org/] (accessed 15/09/2015), is the following query: what pairs of singers and bullfighters are married? Formulated as: PREFIX dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> SELECT ?torero ?cantante WHERE{ ?torero rdf:type dbpedia-owl:BullFighter . ?torero dbpedia-owl:spouse ?cantante . ?cantante dcterms:subject <http://es.dbpedia.org/resource/Categoría:Cantantes_de_coplas>}

Notice that in most search engines (like Google), the result is a list of documents in which these words appear, but no specific response is obtained. However in the web of data, if the previous query is made (¿cuáles son los toreros casados con cupletistas? in Spanish), then their specific names are obtained (José Ortega Cano and Rocío Jurado, Curro Romero and Concha Márquez Piquer, Francisco Rivera and Isabel Pantoja), in the form of the following pairs of links to bullfigther and singer: http://es.dbpedia.org/resource/Jos%C3%A9_Ortega_Cano

http://es.dbpedia.org/page/Roc%C3%ADo_Jurado

http://es.dbpedia.org/resource/Curro_Romero

http://es.dbpedia.org/resource/Concha_M%C3%A1rquez_Piquer

http://es.dbpedia.org/resource/Francisco_Rivera

http://es.dbpedia.org/resource/Isabel_Pantoja

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Digital Humanities Computer technologies are incorporated into the Digital Humanities (DH) after a first stage of digital preservation of historic documents. Once the documents have been digitized and annotated by experts, it is necessary to access and view these content. It is in 2009 when the term Digital Humanities research was coined. Some related initiatives are: • CenterNet ([http://dhcenternet.org/], accessed 15/09/2015) created in 2007 with renowned international centers in HD Canada, USA, UK, Germany, France among others.

• Humanidades Digitales Hispánicas. Sociedad Internacional (HDH) ([http://www.humanidadesdigitales.org/inicio.htm], accessed 15/09/2015) Spanish Association created in 2012. Its II Congreso Internacional held in Madrid ([http://hdh2015.linhd.es/], accessed 15/09/2015) organized by the UNED Laboratorio de Innovación en Humanidades Digitales (LINDH).

• Red de Humanidades Digitales (RedHD) ([http://www.humanidadesdigitales.net/], accessed 15/09/2015) founded in México in 2011.

• Day of Digital Humanities (day DH) ([http://dayofdh2014.matrix.msu.edu/], accessed 15/09/2015), project created in 2009 to organize a one-day meeting (annually). In 2013 researchers from Latin America, the Caribbean and the Iberian Peninsula who work primarily in Spanish or Portuguese started to work together ([http://dhd2013.filos.unam.mx/acerca/], accessed 15/09/2015).

Projects in the DH2 share features, and differ in their degree of complexity. Some of these projects are built in specific software platforms (such as Omeka.org) or generic ones (such as WordPress among others). Typically they offer search and navigation services from the structured information included in its repositories or databases, being the user requirements which determine the type of display and access.

For the development of applications accessing data and digitized information, generally it is necessary to answer the following questions, which depends on the task or objective to be solved: • What kind of data has to be used?

• Where are the data?

• What kind of storage is needed?

• What type of access is needed?

• What you want to show and to whom?

Once we know the answers, the software tools will support the work with the DIMH corpus in the following topics: 1. The formal representation of information and content modeling, 2. The organization and structure of data,

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b

a FIG. 4

(a) Model and (b) consult extracted from [http://bid.ub.edu/05gairi2.htm], (accessed 15/09/2015).

3. Text mining and information extraction, 4. Information retrieval, 5. Interfaces and information visualization and 6. The analysis of structured information.

The databases are still very much used, as for example, the general purpose Microsoft Access (proprietary technology) or MySQL which is freely accessible. For example, for a catalog of books in a library, it is necessary to describe each book, its author, title, publisher, etc., concepts with which to build a data model and relationships like that in Figure 4a. This model will allow questions such as that in Figure 4b (list of received documents until to a specific date).

But the databases technology can not share the data, unless technology such as the ASP (Active Server Pages) and the ODBC protocol (Open Database Connectivity) are used, in order to allow access through a web browser. In any case, we need to know the SQL code and embed it in an ASP page in order to consult the data.

The Semantic Web unlike databases, provides a set of standards (metadata in RDF, SPARQL query language etc.) and other resources that increase the interoperability and data access models of the traditional databases.

INFORMATION MODELING IN THE DIMH PROJECT

The technological objectives of this project are to select a representation and storage solution of available information both structured and unstructured (raw text), in order to make this information accessible through an organization model and a retrieval task, and visible for its use in DH research. In the DIMH project, the problem addressed is the discovering of concepts and their semantic relationships with an automatic and unsupervised approach (without the intervention of experts).

After an initial period of familiarization with the «Colección de mapas, planos y dibujos» included in the «Archivo General de Simancas (AGS)», and the linguistic enrichment of the original files (in XML-RDF), the DIMH corpus was developed. Then it was implemented the DIMH environment, a web application for a configurable and a simple search

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(google type). The configurable search supports the parameterization of both the structure of the corpus of documents and the type of linguistic information in order to be used during the search (advance search)3. The next step was the definition of a knowledge organization model (Formal Concept Analysis or FCA) and its feasibility on the corpus DIMH was tested. Finally an interface for humanist evaluation was implemented.

The knowledge organization model designed, developed and implemented is based on the FCA mathematical theory, which belongs to the same area of research as probability theory Direchlet Latent Allocation (LDA) widely used in the field of DH. FCA is a modeling technique that detects content relationships between terms, and then organize the contents according to these relationships. The application of the technology-based FCA to the metadata in the corpus DIMH4, facilitates: 1. The organization of the content is based on the formal concepts, that is groups of objects (corresponding to maps, plans and drawings sheets) and their attributes (automatically or manually chosen terms). One advantage of LDA, is that it is not necessary to decide a priori the number of nodes (formal concepts) in the generated network structure.

2. The content organization based on a taxonomy of terms or based on prior knowledge provided by the humanists.

3. The content representation on the basis of a navigable structure by the users.

Corpus DIMH Description The collection of cards includes textual information from maps, plans and drawings. Its study has shown that the data contained are mainly related to the following metadata: • Date (Fecha): four-digit number indicating the year in which the work was carried out.

• References (Referencias): book or magazine in which it is included the work.

• Creator - Author (Creador - Autor): The author/creator of the work.

• Type (Tipo): Illustrations and photos; maps; manuscripts; Books; Others.

• Language (Idioma - Lengua): language in which the original work is written, coded as: Spa - Spanish, Fre - French, Eng - English, Lat - Latin, Ger - German, Ita - Italian, Por - Portuguese, Dut - Dutch Cat - Catalan. Only the title contains words in a different language to Spanish.

• Subject (Temática): very different values and changing in every work. Some possible values are: drawings of Canyons; Whales; Fauna; Artillery; Drawing machines; Boats; Military uniforms Drawings; Hospital maps; Lighthouse maps; Flat maps; Fortifications maps; Architectural drawings; Ammunition.

• Technique (Técnica): used for carrying out the work, such as: o Ink. It may be watery, black. o Colors: black, red, gold, maroon, green, yellow, gray, green, sepia. o All of them can be: with explanation or labeling.

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FIG. 5

Card with ID: 178124 from Corpus DIMH.

â&#x20AC;˘ Physical support (Soporte - Impreso en - Escrito en): Parchment; Handwritten on paper; Copy; Etching (only illustrations and photos); Printed.

The search filters in the original catalogue online do not allow the aforementioned classes, because, some of these data are grouped into a single information field called Description or Notes [FIG. 1].

In the first stage of the project DIMH, the 7,792 collection cards (RDF format: DC), were downloaded and processed using two facilities of the implemented environment: information extraction in XML documents (raw text) and from the structured parts of the cards. Then, the cards were enriched with the named entities and its categories, the noun phrases and lemmas founded. The enrichment is stored in the metadata: Title, Creator, Subject, Notes, Editor, Type, References and Matter. The result for each tab is a new XML file with the fields relating to each type of extracted information [FIG. 5].

Terminology Extraction and Prior Knowledge The first modeling of the cards, showed that regardless of the statistical results, the selected attributes (classes) were not significant as regards the content of the cards, but they mean too generic terms (e.g. colours, references, etc.). This was mainly because the model contained only the terms with a higher frequency on the cards. To fix the problem a new approach was proposed by applying a technique for terminology extraction as a previous step to the application of the knowledge organization algorithm.

To extract the most representative terminology, modeling is carried out based on the divergence of Kullback-Leibler or KLD5. This modeling attempts to extract the terminology that best describes the cards in the corpus, differentiating each of the other cards in the collection. The result of the KLD modeling is a list of the most representative terms ordered according to their weight as shown in Figure 6.

To test the effectiveness of this modeling, the corpus of 7,122 cards in Spanish were tested and 130 attributes (terms) were obtained instead of the 33 that appear in more

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cards, which represents some improvement from the empirical point of view, but much more qualitatively, because the most representative terms of the contents of the cards were selected instead of only generic and uninformative terms. For example, terms like «colors», «material» and «ags» will lead to many uninteresting relationships, but terms as «Madrid» «seventeenth century», «majesty» and «drawing» are more significant and facilitates the organization of the content of the cards (e.g. «drawings S.XVII» or «drawing S.XVII majesty»).

Using a user-based evaluation methodology, their comments and impressions were collected and as result, a new approach to modeling the cards FIG. 6 KLD model for the card with ID: 184103. was raised to favor the discovery of clusters in the data and the latent organization (i.e. not explicitly by the terms frequency analysis of the data). The experts noted that they had a prior knowledge of the data (for example about types, authors, or locations included in the data), which should be reflected in the model. A first embodiment of this knowledge in the form of taxonomy was made and a new model was developed using the terms representing the prior knowledge provided, regardless of their frequency in the collection.

Although the identified partial taxonomy will support new modifications, the currently implemented one is as follows (The terms are both in English and Spanish, because the application is working with cards written in Spanish): 1. Representation system (Sistema de representación) 1.1 TECHNIQUE (TÉCNICA) (14 terms) 1.1.1 Ground (Base): paper; cloth; scrim; manuscript on paper; (papel; tela; entelado; manuscrito sobre papel;) 1.1.2 Technique type (Tipo de técnica): Ink; black ink; shading; pencil; watery; recorded; nib; colors; drawing; (Tinta; tinta negra; sombreado; lápiz; aguada; grabado; plumilla; colores; dibujo;) 1.2 COLORS (13 terms) 1.2.1 sepia; brown; blue and gray; incarnated; purple; oche; yellow; blue; grey; (sepia; marrón; azul y gris; encarnado(s); violeta; ocres; amarillo; azul; gris;) 1.2.2 rose eight winds (or compass card); red; (rosa de ocho vientos; rojo;) 1.2.3 lis; green; (lis; verde;)

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1.3 REPRESENTATION TYPES (TIPOS DE REPRESENTACIÓN) (25 terms) 1.3.1 Architectural plant; map; plant; perspective; raised; (Planta arquitectónica; plano; planta; perspectiva; alzado).

1.3.2 Content type classification (Clasificación tipo contenido): Sketch; profile (s); notebook; trace; (Bosquejo; perfil(es); cuaderno/quaderno; traza/traça/ trasa; croquis) 1.3.3 Functional classification (Clasificación funcional): Project / projected; map; descriptions of parts / terms; portion; detail; scratch; lifting; (proyecto/proyectado; mapa; descripciones de partes/términos; porción; detalle; rasguño; levantamiento;) 1.3.4 drawing; NO oriented; ichnográfica plant; description; (dibujo; orientada al NO; planta ichnográfica; descripción/discreption/description) 1.3.5 representation; portrait / ritratto; relief; (representación/representaçión; retrato/ritratto; relieve) 1.3.6 horizontal; vertical; hexagonal; ((h)orizontal; vertical; (h)exagonal;) 1.3.7 relationship; design; (relación; desinios/desegno/designio/desiño/disinio/diseño;) 1.4 MISCELLANEOUS (VARIA) (19 terms) 1.4.1 scale; calculation; builder; instruction; authors; prices; model; rubric; according; site; rose eight winds; wind rose with eight points; proposed arrangements; wind rose with eight points and with pink lily; (escala; cálculo; albañil; instrucción; autores; precios; modelo; rúbrica; conforme; emplazamiento; rosa de ocho vientos; rosa de los vientos de ocho puntas; propuesta de arreglos; con lis en rosa de ocho vientos;) 1.4.2 Key: alphabetical; numeric; alphanumeric; (clave: alfabética; numérica; alfanumérica;) 1.4.3 manuscript; distances; (manuscrito; distancias;) 2. Urban/ geographic categories (Categorías urbanas / geográficas) (7 terms): Porto; channel; bay; square; City; coast; Land; citadel; fortress; (Puerto; canal; bahía; plaza; ciudad/citta; costa; tierras; ciudadela; fuerte) 3. Typologies (Tipologías) 3.1 MILITARY (MILITAR) (23 terms): quarters; trenches; pavilions; ramparts; castle; bulwark; store; citadel; arsenal; curtain; knight; tower; masts; ravelin; batteries; barracks; old fortress; bastion; moat; pavilions; fortress; (cuarteles; trincheras; pabellones; murallas; castillo/castello/castel; baluarte/baluarte/semibaluarte; almacén; ciudadela; murallas; arsenal; cortina; caballero; torreón; torre(s)/torrione; arboladuras; revellín; baterías; barracones; alcazaba vieja; bastión/baestión; foso; pabellones; fuerte/fortificacion(es)/fortaleza/fortezza/forte) 3.2 MARITIME (MARÍTIMA) (7 terms): entrance; port; shipyard; houses of cranes; arsenal; dock; ship; (bocana; puerto/puertto; astillero; casas de grúas; arsenal; dársena; navío;) 3.3 INDUSTRIAL (5 terms): factory; tobacco factory; warehouse/ store; sawmill; (fábrica; fábrica de tabacos; almahazen/almagacen /almacén; aserradero; nagacenes;)

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3.4 PUBLIC WORKS (OBRA PÚBLICA) (6 terms): works; houses of cranes; pulley; offices; roads; stands/bleachers; (obras; casas de grúas; polea; oficinas; caminos; gradas;) 3.5 ARCHITECTURE (11 terms): building; wall; pincers; double pincer; blocks; divisions; store; Estrada; entrance; terrace; double terrace; (edificio; muro(s); tenaza; doble tenaza; bloques; repartimientos; almacén; estrada; entrada; terraza; doble terraza;) 3.6 CITY (7 terms): extramural; villa; sewage system; square; dependencies; door; (extramuros; villa; alcantarillado; plaza/plaça; dependencias; puerta;) 4. Measures (Medidas) (25 terms): toesas; real toesas; elbows; scale; baras; royal feet; mashing; castilian yards; castilla yards; real yards; cubic yards; cane; geometric feet; common foot; castilian feet; castilla feet; roman foot; foot; inch; mile; spans; league; real league; ana; braza; (toesas/tuesas/tuesas; toesas reales; codos; escala; baras; pies reales; braseaje/braceaje; varas castellanas; varas de Castilla; varas reales; varas cúbicas; cana/caña/canya; pies geométricos; pies comunes; pies castellanos; pies de Castilla; pie romano; pie; pulgada; milla; palmos; legua; legua real; ana; braza;) 5. Authors (cited names) (21 terms) (Not translated into English): Tanlete, Jose(ph); Arredondo, Antonio de; Montalvo, Lorenzo de; Cramer, Agustín; Patiño, José; Buceta, Ventura; Martínez de la Vega, Dionisio; Próspero, Jorge (Marqués de Verboom) [16651744]; Cafaro, Donato Antonio; Caballero (Cavallo), Bruno; Montero de Espinosa, Jose(ph) (capitán de navío); Picchiatti, Francesco Antonio; Guemes y Horcasitas, Juan Francisco (Gobernador de La Habana); Castellón, José (Joseph); Liguera, Juan de; Marqués de la Ensenada; Domingo y Cueba, Francisco; Reggio, Andrés; Tavira, Ramón; Tiburcio Spannocchi (Espanoqui, Espanochio, Espanochi, Fra Tiburcio, Tribulcio Hispanochi e Hispanoqui).

This is the information that it is included in one version of the FCA model and will allow the search and navigation throughout the structure and content of the cards in the DIMH corpus.

DIMH Corpus Modeling with FCA Technique Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) is a modeling technique that organizes the content trough the detection of relationships between the significant terms and their attributes presented in the contents of the target documents6. To accomplish this organization it automatically generates a set of formal concepts, which includes a set of objects (DIMH cards) that share a particular set of attributes (terms). After generating all possible formal concepts, FCA arranges them into a network structure (lattice) according to the order relationships identified.

The FCA algorithm applied to the DIMH corpus is based on the following steps: • Selection and extraction of information from the cards: As not all the information contained in the cards is likely to be used in the modelling, a preliminary step of selection and extraction of textual content to represent each card was held. This is taking into account the contents of the following metadata: publication, reference notes, named entities (nes *), subject, matter and title (publicación, referencia,

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notas, entidades nombradas (nes_*), temática, materia, título); and it is left out: Publisher, format, type, lemmas and phrases (Publicador, formato, tipo, lemas and sintagmas). Also, a process of removing empty words was applied.

• Formal context definition: The formal context is described by an adjacency matrix indicating when a term (attribute) appears or not in the content of each card (object). This matrix contains IDs cards in its rows and terms in its columns, so that the elements of the matrix indicate its membership relationship (1 if the card contains the term and 0 if not).

• Formal context reduction: The formal context includes all susceptible generated terminology to represent cards. However, this leads to redundant or insignificant information. Therefore, prior to the implementation of the FCA algorithm, the formal context it is reduced. Briefly, the reduction tries to find the terminology that generates most of the relationships between cards, with no significant loss of information. This reduction algorithm improves the runtime of the FCA algorithm, as well as its results.

• FCA algorithm running: At this stage it is performed the generation of the formal concepts. Without going into technical details, at this stage all possible formal concepts (which represent cards that share a set of terms or attributes) and order relationships between them are generated.

The algorithm is the author’s implementation of the Next Neighbourhood’s algorithm7.

The output format is a text file, where each of the formal concepts (groups of related cards by terms) are listed along with information on the generated lattice (the structure ordering concepts from the generic to the more specifically, according to a partial order relationship). This network format is suitable for subsequent processing; however, it is unintuitive for display, given the large number of concepts generated.

FCA Model of the Prior Knowledge The modeling of a corpus is to generate the formal context through the information contained in the cards and run the FCA algorithm using the prior information available (partial taxonomy). To do so, in the process, whenever an entity that appears in the taxonomy (prior knowledge) is detected in the text of one of the cards, it requires the entity to be included as an attribute relevant to the card regardless of the frequency of its appearance. This is done during the reduction of the formal context, and the entity will appear in the lattice generated after the application of the FCA. Thus, the resulting model will contain the data organization according to the partial taxonomy provided by historians and to the rest of the information included in the cards. The first results obtained are as follows: Cards

Attributes

Relationships

Formal Concepts

KLD model

7,792

103

29,874

17,501

Text and Taxonomy

7,792

36

13,719

1,197

TAB LE 1

FCA results with prior knowledge.

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Although cards are represented by their text and terms in the taxonomy, it happens that almost all the attributes are selected from the text and not from the taxonomy. This is a problem, since the idea of this refinement is to obtain a better description of the cards by including the taxonomy to improve the process and the results. Therefore this type of modeling is further refined, representing only cards with the terms of taxonomy, using the following normalization: • The different lexical variations of the same word (singular and plural, and in Spanish, masculine and feminine) are represented by the same term.

• The different spellings of the same historical term are represented by the same word (e.g., toesas/tuesas/tuesas reales).

• It takes into account the hierarchy of the taxonomy (e.g. types> Military> Barracks).

For example, barracks will be represented by all the terms of the hierarchy to which it belongs.

The FCA algorithm is set to generate a corpus model that takes into account all the taxonomy terms, so all of them appearing in the cards are going to be included in the formal context. That is, reducing the formal context is not implemented in any thresholds frequency of terms, although during the selection step terminology they were, so it is possible that some term in the taxonomy may not be taken into account, even though it appears in any card, because there is another term in the formal context to describe all the cards that are related to it.

Refinements for Improvement in the Modeling and Runtime Forcing the inclusion of taxonomic information in the modeling makes the formal context artificially larger than in previous approaches. Therefore running of FCA becomes much slower, and the terms related to the first level of the taxonomy or classes (e.g. System Representation, measures, etc.), often appear. This leads to a very large number of formal concepts, which grows exponentially with respect to the number of occurrences of these terms. Therefore, the fact that slowing down the running of the FCA makes it necessary to remove or find another way to handling it, although it was interesting to have them (to give structure to the lattice, being at the top). In addition to these terms of classes (hierarchy) of taxonomy, there are other terms that appear very often, that slow down the running time. All of this justifies two new refinements in the model generation.

Since the terms of the classes of the hierarchy generates an efficiency problem, a compromise is to be included in the term. For example, «barracks» belongs to Typology> Military, so it is going to be represented by the single term TYPOLOGY_MILITARY_BARRACK (TIPOLOGÍAS_ MILITAR_ CUARTELES). Thus, the terms of the classes of the hierarchy do not appear separately, avoiding the generation of a large number of formal concepts, but the information will still be displayed.

To test this approach, an experiment was carried out including a threshold which eliminated all terms appearing less than 0.1% of the time (that is, they appear in less than 7 cards), shortening the run time. This experimentation in the search user interface is called «Índice con tipologías (reducido)». The results with this refinement are:

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Cards

Attributes

Relationships

Formal Concepts

7,792

44

47,860

14,939

TABLE 2

Refining results.

Another solution is to eliminate the most common terms (appearing in more than 70% of the cards), thus automatically eliminating the very generic terms. Either remove the terms of the classes of the hierarchy, since it would not make sense that some terms of the hierarchy were included (which appear in less than 70% of the cards) or eliminate the others. This experimentation in the search user interface is called «Índice sin tipologías». With this refinement, the taxonomy provided by the historians will become a list of very significant terms.

RESULTS VISUALIZATION: INTERFACES AND WEB SERVICES

The interface developed in the DIMH environment after the authentication process [FIG. 7] allows: • The results of a consult to be viewed on the generated lattice for a previously processed corpus that organizes the concepts [FIGS. 8-10]. Tthe two experiments detailed in the previous section can also be visualized («Índice con tipologías (reducido)» and «Índice sin tipologías»).

• A search for the rich content of the original files of the collection of maps, plans and drawings of the AGS [FIGS. 1113].

• A corpus to be selected indicating the parameters required for its modeling, processing and indexing with FCA I order to provide the search facilities [FIG. 14].

FIG. 7

DIMH Interface: login.

The DIMH environment and the different versions are available in a server of the NLP & IR research group at the ETSI Informática, UNED. All experiments have been carried out on a server with 16 Intel Xeon 2.40GHz processors and 32 GB of RAM. The

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URL of the application is: [http://albali.lsi.uned.es/DIMHDemo-2/], (accessed 25/01/2016) (to get the password, please contact any author).

FCA Lattice Exploratory Search The search interface [FIG. 8] allows to select the index (FCA lattice store) on which to perform the search for. The two final approaches are available («Índice con tipologías (reducido)» and «Índice sin tipologías») as well as a basic approach without the refinement proposed in section 3.3.2.

From a query it is accessed its relevant formal concepts (clusters of cards) included in the FCA lattice. To allow this search, all formal concepts generated are indexed along with their information. This search can be understood as an exploratory search on the lattice generated by the FCA since, given a general need for information, you also want to know what other information is related. For example, if you want to search for infor-

FIG. 8

FIG. 9

398

Search Interface.

Results for «mapa».

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 10

Cards associated with the formal concept «mapa, torreón, relieve, sombreado».

mation related to «mapa», the results obtained are shown in Figure 9 (note that the interface returns a list of formal concepts, automatically defined by their labels). The information includes different types of maps related to buildings (fortress, tower) or different techniques used to create the maps (gouache, engraving, paper).

Once it has found a link between data (map and tower), a new search can be carried out with the query «mapa torreon» [FIG. 10], and the FCA lattice section that includes this formal concept is shown. There it can be found specific contents as «mapa, torreón, relieve, sombreado», which in turn is more generic than «mapa, torreón, relieve, sombreado, entelado» and «mapa, torreón, relieve, sombreado, papel». The number of cards that belongs to a group of cards or formal concept is also shown in the user interface.

The formal concept list for a consult can be explored by clicking in any of the specific formal concepts that contains. In this case, in the right part of the interface, the list of the cards contained in the clicked formal concept is shown. Thus, not only information related to the structure and labels of the formal concepts but also the content of the cards is displayed. For example, the cards associated to the «mapa, torreón, relieve, sombreado» formal concept (less generic than «mapa torreón» of the consult) are shown in Figure 10.

Search on the Content of the Cards Lattice This search for («google type») find the cards that contain the query terms. To allow this search for, all the cards are indexed together with its content. The fields that have been

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FIG. 11

List of cards as a result of consult «pintura oleo».

Formal concepts where the card «pintura representando un árbol que simboliza el Regimiento Lusitania» is located.

FIG. 12

indexed are: title of the card, content (including the notes field, type, subject, references and matters), named entities, date and language) (in Spanish: título de la ficha, contenido (incluye el campo notas, tipo, temáticas, referencias y materia), entidades nombradas, fecha e idioma). This interface is intended to meet a very specific need for information. For example, if you want to seek information from oil paints, using the interface option Search Content shown in the Figure 11, the interface will return the list of cards containing the terms of the consult.

The interface also allows you to select a card for see if the contents; for example pintura representando un árbol que simboliza el Regimiento Lusitania (second card shown at Figure 11). Once a card is selected by clicking on the title, the interface displays the formal concepts that include that card [FIG. 12], using the option Show Selected Content.

As described, the interface allows you to browse the different formal concepts and the content of each of them to display related information with the cards. You can also see other similar cards, according to the organization defined by the formal concepts (i.e. the related cards in the same formal concept are those which share the same set of descriptors or attributes). For the example in Figure 12, you can find other cards that are related to designs or colours and, if you want a concrete relationship, you can display cards with drawings on paper with incarnate and ocher colours [FIG. 13].

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FIG. 13

Harnessing the hierarchy of groups of cards (formal concepts).

Processing of New Collections In the DIMH environment new collections can also be processed, using the interface.

In Figure 14 you can see a screenshot of the interface to index a new collection or to view the collection that has been previously indexed.

To carry out this process, the following sub-process implemented in the environment has to be used: • Preprocessing: Step to indicate whether it is necessary to remove the stopwords (empty words) from the contents of the documents and whether it is necessary to apply the KLD technique to select the most representative terminology.

• Lexical enrichment: This feature refers to the lexical content enhancement of documents, once they are preprocessed. These options allow to identify named entities that may or may not appear in the text and apply the contents’ lemmatization. The application is used for both processes (licensed to research) MeaningCloud ([https://www.meaningcloud.com/es/], accessed 22/09/2015).

• Shallow Parsing: This functionality indicates whether you want to extract a multiword group content of documents.

FIG. 14

Interface to index a new collection.

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FIG. 15

Interface to process a new collection.

Next you have to select the files to be indexed using «Upload New Version» [FIG. 15].

The selection box allows you to select all documents (by holding down the CTRL key you can select all the files you wish). It is possible to process the next 4 types of file format: • Cards in exactly the extracted format: This is the format created for the DIMH corpus, which can take all fields of the card, obtaining the best possible representation.

• PDF: Files in PDF format. All the textual information in the PDF is stored in a single field.

• XML: Files in XML format. All the textual information included in the different fields is stored in a single field.

• Plain text: Plain text files. All the textual information is stored in a single field.

It is not necessary to establish the desired file format, the interface itself will identify the format of the files that the user has selected. It is important not to include files in a format other than those permitted and that all the selected files of the collection (corpus) were in the same format. If any of these restrictions are not met, it will fail and the collection will not be processed.

After the selection of the files and for the selection to be confirmed, the processing of the new collection of documents will start. At the bottom of the screen interface where messages that indicate the point at which the processing of the collection stats and when it is finished, a new button («Continuar») will appear, in order to consult the already processed collection.

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CONCLUSION

In the field of Digital Humanities automatic data processing has been discovered as an essential step in carrying different tasks based on information. Beyond existing resources (semantic databases, ontologies, taxonomies, etc.), automatic data modeling can facilitate the analysis of collections of documents, improving the work of researchers.

In this sense, in the DIMH project, a methodology has been proposed for the automatic modeling of the contents related to the project. To this end, it has applied the Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) technique, a mathematical method for the automatic organization of content through a conceptual model. To carry out this organization, the FCA algorithm uses the theory of ordered sets to group contents that share common characteristics and to organize the contents hierarchically in a lattice structure, from the most generic to the most specific, according to a relationship of partial order.

The application of the FCA-based modelling on the original AGS collection has been carried out iteratively improving the process at every stage by the comments and suggestions offered by the experts in evaluating each iteration following a user-based methodology. The final model can be accessed through an interface developed specifically for this project. It is claimed to be a computer support for the DIMH researchers in tasks related to the «Colección digital de mapas, planos y dibujos del Archivo General de Simancas».

NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Ana García Serrano and Ángel Castellanos, ETSI Informática - UNED, C/ Juan del Rosal 16, 28040 Madrid, agarcia@lsi.uned.es, acastellanos@lsi.uned.es JONES, 2014; DRUCKER et al., 2014; SACCO, 2015.

CÁMARA and GARCÍA SERRANO, 2014.

CASTELLANOS et al., 2015.

KULLBACK and LEIBLER, 1951; CASTELLANOS et al., 2014.

WILLE, 1992.

CARPINETO and ROMANO, 2004; CIGARRÁN, 2008.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

CÁMARA, A.

and GARCÍA SERRANO, A. (2014), El dibujante ingeniero al servicio de la monarquía hispánica. Siglos

XVI-XVIII (DIMH). LINHD - ThatCamp de Humanidades Digitales en la UNED, F. Derecho - UNED, 30/04/2014. Comunicación oral ([https://canal.uned.es/mmobj/index/id/19677], accessed 25/01/2016).

CARPINETO, C.

and ROMANO, G. (2004), Concept data analysis: Theory and applications, John Wiley & Sons.

CASTELLANOS, A., CIGARRÁN, J.

and GARCÍA SERRANO, A. (2014), A Content Modelling Proposal and Evaluation

Framework: Application in a Recommender System. 3rd Spanish Conference on Information Retrieval (CERI), A Coruña. ([https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278018282_A_Content_Modelling_Proposal_and_Evaluation_Framework_Application_in_a_Recommender_System], accessed 25/01/2016) CASTELLANOS, A., GARCÍA SERRANO, A.

and JUAN CIGARRÁN, J. (2015), Concept-based Organization for semi-auto-

matic Knowledge Inference in Digital Humanities: Modelling and Visualization. Proc. Knowledge Organization Systems and Digital Humanities - ISKO-France. Strasbourg Nov 2015. ([https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291102972_Concept-based_Organization_for_semiautomatic_Knowledge_Inference_in_Digital_Humanities_Modelling_and_Visualization], accessed 25/01/2016).

CIGARRÁN, J.

(2008), Agrupación de Resultados de Búsqueda Mediante Análisis Formal de Conceptos. Ph.D. thesis,

UNED. DRUCKER, J., KIM, D., SALEHIAN, I., and BUSHONG , A. (2014), An Introduction to Digital Humanities [http://dh101.hu-

manities.ucla.edu/], accessed 25/01/2016).

JONES, S. E.

(2014), The emergence of the Digital Humanities, Taylor & Francis.

([https://books.google.es/books?id=zQqTAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=digital+humanities+jones+2013& hl=es&sa=X&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAGoVChMIq5GRipz-xwIVQlgUCh0z-Q0z], accessed 25/01/2016).

KULLBACK, S.

and LEIBLER, R.A. (1951), «On information and sufficiency», The Annals of Mathematical Statistics

22(1), pp. 79-86.

MARTÍNEZ, K. and ISAKSEN, L. (2010), The semantic web approach to increasing access to cultural heritage, in C. BAILEY,

(ed.), Revisualizing Visual Culture. Farnham, GB, Ashgate, 29-44. (Digital Research in the Arts and Hu-

manities) ([http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/268557/], accessed 25/01/2016).

SACCO, K. (2015), Supporting Digital Humanities for Knowledge Acquisition in Modern Libraries. Advances in Library

and Information Science (ALIS) Book Series. IGI Global. ([https://books.google.es/books?id=xYIfCgAAQBAJ&pg=PR15&dq=Supporting+Digital+Humanities+for+Knowledge+Acquisition+in+Modern+Libraries&hl=es&sa=X&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAGoVChMI5fvy0JzxwIVhu8UCh03QwiE%23v=onepage&q=Supporting%20Digital%20Humanities%20for%20Knowledge%20Acquis ition%20in%20Modern%20Libraries&f=false], accessed 25/01/2016).

WILLE, R.

(1992), Concept lattices and conceptual knowledge systems. Computers & mathematics with applications

23(6), pp. 493-515.

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17 Future Answers to the Historian: the Current Development of the Semantic Web in the Area of Historical Archives JESÚS LÓPEZ DÍAZ1 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) Translation: DIANE SCHOFIELD

ABSTRACT

Using experience gained from participating in a research project, this paper aims to reflect the perceptible or nonperceptible changes that are currently developing in the historical profession, especially recognizing the way in which it may be influenced by the technological tools applied to the research. The semantic web and ontologies derived from its application to developmental work in digitized historical files are an example of how far this new impulse for more developed research and analysis technologies can be a hint of change in historiographic methodology.

KEYWORDS

Semantic web, ontology, historiography, historians, files.

405

TOOLS, METHOD, STRUCTURE â&#x20AC;Ś

In the last decade historiographic matters have played a central role in debates among historians. At the beginning of the twenty-firstt century the contributions of the social sciences, philosophy or language which had so much influence and repercussions in the twentieth century had already been superseded and the methods used to reconstruct History were in the process of reconfiguration. The question to be tackled here is to elucidate how far the changes brought by technology in the construction of historical narrative may shortly be considered as a new development of the historianâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s methodology, or if on the other hand, we should understand them as a profound change in information management, that is, as a part of the value of working tools and not structure and method.

All historians who work with historical archives, and even those who just work in libraries, have seen to their satisfaction that their modus operandi has been transformed by the possibility of carrying out some of their activities using their computer eliminating the need to make unnecessary journeys. After computerized documentation, came the stage of digitization where librarians, archivists and documentalists have continued to index and organize documents using standardized systems to facilitate the work of the historian. It is undeniable that the time saved and the number of documents accessible on line is unparalleled, at times presenting the problem of managing and organizing the information rather than getting access to it as was the case until a few decades ago.

Currently it is possible not only to access historical documents from the different historical archives, but also to carry out a parallel search almost by-passing the original archive, as for example in the Portal of Spanish Archives (PARES)2 or in Archives Portal Europe3, or on a larger scale and not only with reference to historical archives but also hundreds of items from all sources, in the Europeana4 project.

FIG. 1

406

Home of the website of the Europeana project.

DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

FIG. 2

Cover website of Archives Portal Europe.

What could initially be considered a quantitative question has taken a leap forward with the implementation of the semantic web. Qualitative aspects can now be taken into account in the search process, which can redirect the work and initial hypothesis of the researcher overcoming the dichotomy between heuristics and holism.

BEYOND ICTs

According to Badanelli and Ossenbach «The great variety of documents which are now available to researchers in the Internet facilitate richer and more complex historical interpretations, and permit them to read anew about historical facts which have been “recounted” from more traditional sources», and they give the example of the project developed by the University of Virginia The Valley of the Shadow, in which the contrasting of different public and private documents from two neighbouring communities from before, during and after the American Civil War made it possible to question or qualify deeply rooted conventional interpretations5.

The following step together with the massive amount of documents uploaded into the Internet from one or several archives, has been the possibility of labelling

THE CURRENT DEVELOPMENT OF THE SEMANTIC WEB IN THE AREA OF HISTORICAL ARCHIVES

407

and codifying them, contributing metadata which can subsequently be retrieved in efficient searches. The different codification systems now offer additional information on the documents which can be of great interest in the search results as they offer secondary information which is not evident at first sight in the document and permits a subsequent network of searches and filters as well as a much wider possibility of interpretative keys. It is no longer just a question of knowing data on the authors, source, dating or any other aspect included by the cataloguer, the possibility offered includes the addition of an almost infinite amount of hypertextual information.

It is true that there are several barriers to be overcome, unlimited open access and questions about ownership, on the one hand, are being solved in many cases by Creative Commons licenses, although the debate is still open. All this together with the firm commitment of many institutions for Open Access, which is surprising in our university environment where we are in the middle of a struggle between open contents and those that are charged for in the field of university scientific journals, with their undeniably important economic turnover, or the importance in the professional assessment system of aspects like the number of citations (JCR) or the value of the level of the publication ranking.

The second factor to be overcome is the ability to fully «access» the document in its entirety from the Internet, that is for example, that the documents still to be transcribed could be read on line, using a function implemented by the technology without the need of an «amanuensis»6, or that photos and images could have a similar manner of transcription in the Internet which would make it possible to search objects using similar characteristics as has been the case for many years with the Google image search (based on Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) technology).

A third factor would be to avoid the heterogeneity of contents and domains present in the Internet, as Europeana has done for example by directing its efforts in the last few years to interoperability and the creation of a single model for metadata. This is what gave rise to the Europeana Semantic Elements (ESE), which established a set of Dublin Core fields together with another 12 specific elements for Europeana. The new model, Europeana Data Model (EDM), is gradually replacing ESE, and offers more possibilities for searching, contextualization and information for the user, and interoperability in projects with Linked Open Data.

The last factor to highlight would in principle be the first in time, and it is obviously the conservation and recording of our historical documentary heritage whatever the support and origin. The year 2015 was witness to the international conference sponsored by ICCROM and held in September in Brussels under the title of «Unlocking Sound and Image Heritage. See, listen and share». The conference was based on the collective experience of the programme led by ICCROM together with other entities called the Sound and Image Collections Conservation (SOIMA)7, which organized five prior initiatives between 2007 and 2014 in different parts of the globe, and which aims to foment the conservation and promotion of collections principally based on sound and the heritage of images belonging to less well-known cultural institutions and researchers, as well as individual collectors.

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READING BEYOND THE MAPS

In the project which gave rise to this publication we have focussed on the Digital Collection of Maps, Plans and Drawings from the General Archive of Simancas (AGS), which is in the Collective Catalogue of State Libraries, that includes bibliographic descriptions of the collections of the specialist auxiliary libraries which are to be found in the State Archives and the Information Centre for Documental Archives (CIDA), all of which belong to the General Subdirectorate of State Archives at the Spanish Ministry of Culture. That is to say that the Digital Collection is a parallel tool to PARES, and so the same items are possibly and logically to be found in different national and international search engines. This is why it is important to know the resources well, because there are collections which sometimes have to be accessed through different channels, although the future is moving towards single portals or metasearch engines.

The Digital Collection project of the General Archive of Simancas is included in the work of preparing digital repositories of part of these state library and archive collections with the aim of making them known and disseminating them in the international community, using metadata technology, through national projects like Hispana and international ones like the above mentioned APNet and Europeana, which collect these repositories. The first example of these repositories has been the collection of maps, plans and drawings from the General Archive of Simancas which with the digitization of approximately 10,000 images, has represented the first contribution from the collection of the State Archives of the Ministry of Culture to OAI (Open Archives Initiative) projects in the international community.

New images have recently been incorporated into PARES from the immense General Archive of the Indies (61,824 new images), which mostly correspond to the series of letters and files from the Royal Audience of Manila seen in the Council of the Indies (1700-1738), complementing the letters which were already available from the 16th and 17th centuries, as well as reproducing several logbooks of the Armadas, from the House of Trade, with entries corresponding to the preparation of the voyages of Juan de la Cosa, Fernando de Magallanes and Blasco Núñez Vela among others8.

FIG. 3

Digital Collection website of Colección Digital de Mapas, Planos y Dibujos del Archivo General de Simancas.

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FIG. 4 Home of the web of «The Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance» driven by the Getty Research Institute.

However, in spite of the enormous effort made in Spanish archives and museums over the last few years with regard to the management of documentary information and its uploading to the Internet, there is still a mode of behaviour or mentality which, due to the museum information systems that involve a complexity derived from the diversity of its collections, services and types, transforms the museum websites and many heritage channels into «information islands». The most palpable demonstration of this, that goes almost unnoticed as it is so commonly repeated, is that in the end it is the Wikipedia entry on a cultural site which becomes the central informative object, «even before the specialized institutions» and the one hosted by the site itself 9. It is therefore urgent to ensure that the institutional efforts at cataloguing adopt the appropriate technological solutions to give value to the web, so the metadata should be able to define complex cultural objects in much more detail than the description of a simple item or monument, adding as far as possible more contextual and background information without reducing the documental standardization merely to the data which affect the inside of the museum. The extensive public network for the management of, and information on, our cultural heritage is in a much better starting position than a giant with feet of clay like Wikipedia.

The following phase which must come soon as there are already teams and important national and international projects dealing with the topic of the Digital Humanities10 or Digital History11, will be the adoption and development of the institutional historical archives of the so-called ontologies (systems for organizing knowledge) favoured by the semantic web12, together with the necessary «underground» thesauri13. In fact, there

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Home of the web project «Networking the Republic of Letters, 1550-1750», developed by the University of Oxford and sponsored by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

FIG. 5

are several international projects which in the last few years have been references and pioneers in the application of these languages. «The Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance» (PSCP), is a project by the Getty Research Institute, which makes available to the researcher more than a million and a half records enabling the establishment of the origin and trajectory of European art works since the seventeenth century, by accessing all types of documents like inventories, auction records, brochures,... using a multitude of connected archives. In a project with this amplitude and international scope the generation of ontologies which permit the management of such a volume of data and their accessibility to the researcher is of inestimable value.

Another paradigm is «Networking the Republic of Letters, 1550-1750», developed by the University of Oxford and also with the financial backing of an entity like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as part of the Cultures of Knowledge programme. The project brings to light public and private correspondence of the period in question and may be of interest to a wide variety of researchers in classical studies, historians, philosophers, linguists, naturalists... no doubt offering endless possibilities, which would be unmanageable given the quantity and heterogeneity involved without further development of the semantic web.

In a project on a more modest scale, led by the PI Alicia Cámara, we have tried to develop some of the possibilities of the semantic web, the results of which, from the point of view of the developments in computer languages, have already been seen in publications and meetings organized by the expert in the subject and project advisor Ana G. Serrano14. In our country, the projects in which historians take part together with ex-

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perts on the semantic web in the creation of a prototype to implement these possibilities are scarce but interesting15 so that such a contact at the very least means re-thinking the way questions to a data base are formed, as overcoming simple searches and being able to enrich them with new perspectives represents an innovative way of working.

Many of us historians are undeniably at the initial stage recalling that phase of current art in which today’s simple conquests were milestones, like Dan Flavin’s neon tubes illuminating the walls of a gallery or the three literal chairs by Joseph Kosuth adorning the wall of a museum. Today as then it is unquestionable that research in historic archives in the years to come will turn into a new working environment in which tools for the semantic web, currently being developed, will introduce changes in the formulation of questions and the stating of hypotheses.

Returning to the beginning of the argument in this text leads again to formulating the question on whether these changes will be milestones or not in the historiography of the twenty-first century, as in fact we should mention the influence, at the instrumental level, of computer technology. Only instrumental? Isn’t a change already occurring in the minds of young historians accustomed to thinking in images and structuring their approaches according to the digital world in which they were born? Perhaps it is too early to answer but it is probable that in a few years we will recognize the influence of the different stages of the changes produced by information technology in the work of the historian to the point of admitting that the next milestone in historiographic transformation was produced from the same keyboards on which we have written these texts.

NOTES

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Assistant Professor Doctor, Departamento de Historia del Arte, UNED (C/Senda del Rey, 7; Facultad de Geografía e Historia, Madrid); jesuslopez@geo.uned.es The Portal of Spanish Archives (PARES) is a project by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport aimed at the dissemination in the Internet of the Historical Spanish Documentary Heritage conserved in its network of institutions. As well as offering the resources of all of the archives which make up the network it serves as a framework for the dissemination of other public or private archival projects, which have established a prior agreement to collaborate with the Ministry. PARES offers free access, not only to the researcher but also to anyone interested in accessing digitized documents from the Spanish Archives.

The Archives Portal Europe is one of the main advances achieved by the participants in the APEx project supported by the European Commission in the ICT PSP programme. The project consortium is made up of 33 partners from 32 countries.

The Portal makes it possible to efficiently find information from among the millions of documents conserved in different archives. It is the first time that the European archives have collaborated on this scale and the potential offered by these connexions is enormous both for archive professionals and users. The project also aims to send data to Europeana.

The Europeana Portal acts as an access point to millions of digital resources from European archives, museums, libraries and audiovisual collections. More than 2,200 European institutions have contributed to the creation and development of Europeana, from the large museums to the regional archives and local museums of all the European Union members. The assemblage of their collections makes it possible to explore the European cultural and scientific heritage from prehistory to the present. The project that gave rise to the creation of Europeana, was the European Digital Library Network (EDLnet), founded by the European Commission in its eContentplus programme. The initial prototype, the first centralized and supranational service, was launched in November 2008, and offered access to 4.5 million digitized items from more than 1,000 organizations.

Today Europeana 2.0 offers more than 23 million from a multilingual and multidisciplinary portal, and continues to grow with the contributions of The European Library or projects like that of Europeana Libraries.

Different projects have arisen around Europeana aimed at promoting technological innovations or the additions of contents, for example ARROW, Europeana Regia or Europeana Connect. Moreover, the integration of the contents from The European Library, to add the contents from European national libraries is already accomplished and the synergy between both projects is becoming increasingly productive.

BADANELLI and OSSENBACH, 2009.

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DRAUGHTSMAN ENGINEERS SERVING THE SPANISH MONARCHY IN THE SIXTEENTH TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

Europeana is promoting a transcription tool for hand written texts thanks to the collaboration of its partner Facts&Files, even so this new tool needs the collaborative and disinterested work of society to be operative, following the line of projects like Wikipedia. The need arose from the marking by Europeana of the centenary of the First World War and the uploading of a large number of documents from the Great War including many personal letters written by soldiers at the front, the legibility of which was complex for many and obvious factors. Ad Pollé, «Writing the past: transcribing handwritten documents from World War One» [http://pro.europeana.eu/blogpost/writing-the-past-transcribing-handwritten-documents-from-world-warone#sthash.dinOy7f4.dpuf], consulted on 29th November 2015. http://www.soima2015.org/, consulted on 29th November 2015.

All together with the file on the visit of Pedro Cortés and Larraz, archbishop of Guatemala, to his dioceses (1768-1770), which produced the work entitled «Descripción Geográfico Moral de la Diócesis de Goathemala» [Geographical and Moral Description of the Dioceses of Goathemala] that contains the descriptions and 113 maps of the parishes visited which are also described and reproduced in the Collection of Maps and Plans, Guatemala series. «Incorporation into PARES of new images from the General Archive of the Indies» [http://www.mecd.gob.es/cultura-mecd/areascultura/archivos/mc/archivos/agi/destacados/incorporacion_pares.html], consulted on 29th November 2015.

SAORÍN, 2010.

The UNED, the founder of this project has promoted during this last year the LINHD (Laboratory of Innovation in Digital Humanities), a centre of Digital Humanities in Spain and in Spanish which it is hoped will constitute an interdisciplinary and collaborative bridge between the Humanities and Technology.

GALLINI and NOIRET, 2011.

SÁNCHEZ-CUADRADO et alli, 2007.

CAYUELA, 2014.

«Ana García Serrano (Proyecto DIMH) took part in the II International Congress of Hispanic Digital Humanities» [http://dimh.hypotheses.org/556], consulted on 30th November 2015.

HERNÁNDEZ-CARRASCAL, 2008; BAENA-SÁNCHEZ et alli, 2014.

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BOOKS PUBLISHED BY FUNDACIÓN JUANELO TURRIANO

JUANELO TURRIANO COLLECTION ON THE HISTORY OF ENGINEERING 2016

Elena and MARTÍNEZ JIMÉNEZ, Javier, Los acueductos de Hispania.

Construcción y abandono.

SÁNCHEZ LÓPEZ,

2015

Cristiano, Juanelo Turriano, de Cremona a la Corte: formación y red social de un ingenio del Renacimiento.

ZANETTI,

ROMERO MUÑOZ,

Dolores, La navegación del Manzanares: el proyecto Grunenbergh.

LOPERA, Antonio,

Arquitecturas flotantes.

Juan Miguel, Jorge Próspero Verboom: ingeniero militar flamenco de la monarquía hispánica.

MUÑOZ CORBALÁN,

JUANELO TURRIANO LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF ENGINEERING 2016 CÁMARA MUÑOZ, Alicia

(ed.), El dibujante ingeniero al servicio de la monarquía hispánica.

Siglos XVI-XVIII. English edition: Draughtsman Engineers Serving the Spanish Monarchy in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries.

2015 NAVASCUÉS PALACIO,

Pedro and REVUELTA POL, Bernardo (eds.), Ingenieros Arquitectos.

CÁMARA MUÑOZ, Alicia

and REVUELTA POL, Bernardo (eds.), Ingeniería de la Ilustración.

2014 CÁMARA MUÑOZ, Alicia

and REVUELTA POL, Bernardo (eds.), Ingenieros del Renacimiento.

English edition (2016): Renaissance Engineers.

2013 CÁMARA MUÑOZ, Alicia

and REVUELTA POL, Bernardo (eds.), Ingeniería romana.

English edition (2016): Roman Engineering.

OTHER BOOKS 2014

Pedro and REVUELTA POL, Bernardo (eds.), Una mirada ilustrada.

Los puertos españoles de Mariano Sánchez.

NAVASCUÉS PALACIO,

2013

Juan Ignacio, Submarino Peral: día a día de su construcción, funcionamiento y pruebas.

CHACÓN BULNES,

414

2012

Inmaculada, El discurso del ingeniero en el siglo XIX. Aportaciones a la historia de las obras públicas.

AGUILAR CIVERA,

CRESPO DELGADO,

Daniel, Árboles para una capital. Árboles en el Madrid de la Ilustración.

2011

Pepa and REVUELTA POL, Bernardo (eds.), Ildefonso Sánchez del Río Pisón: el ingenio de un legado.

CASSINELLO,

2010 CÁMARA MUÑOZ, Alicia CASSINELLO,

(ed.), Leonardo Turriano, ingeniero del rey.

Pepa (ed.), Félix Candela. La conquista de la esbeltez.

2009 CÓRDOBA DE LA LLAVE,

Ricardo, Ciencia y técnica monetarias en la España bajomedieval.

José Ramón (ed.), Pensar la ingeniería. Antología de textos de José Antonio Fernández Ordóñez.

NAVARRO VERA,

2008 RICART CABÚS, Alejandro,

Pirámides y obeliscos. Transporte y construcción: una hipótesis.

Ignacio and NAVASCUÉS PALACIO, Pedro (eds.), Ars Mechanicae.

Ingeniería medieval en España.

GONZÁLEZ TASCÓN,

2006

Glenn; IZAGA REINER, José María and SOLER VALENCIA, Jorge Miguel, El Real Ingenio de la Moneda de Segovia. Maravilla tecnológica del siglo XVI.

MURRAY FANTOM,

2005

Ignacio and VELÁZQUEZ SORIANO, Isabel, Ingeniería romana en Hispania.

Historia y técnicas constructivas.

GONZÁLEZ TASCÓN,

2001

José Ramón, El puente moderno en España (1850-1950).

La cultura técnica y estética de los ingenieros.

NAVARRO VERA,

1997 CAMPO Y FRANCÉS,

Ángel del, Semblanza iconográfica de Juanelo Turriano.

1996/2009 Los Veintiún Libros de los Ingenios y Máquinas de Juanelo Turriano.

1995 MORENO,

Roberto, José Rodríguez de Losada. Vida y obra.

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415

This volume of the collection Juanelo Turriano Lectures on the history of engineering contains the findings of R&D+I research project HAR 2012-31117 El dibujante ingeniero al servicio de la monarquĂ­a hispĂĄnica. Siglos XVI-XVIII (DIMH) [draughtsman engineers serving the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries], funded by the Spanish Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness and implemented under the leadership of Alicia CĂĄmara MuĂąoz, Head of the National Distance Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (UNED) Art History Department.

Authored by project researchers and other specialists, the chapters are grouped under four main sections: ÂŤEngineers vs architects, Illustrated designÂť; ÂŤDescribing frontiersÂť; ÂŤDissemination: Custom and formÂť; and ÂŤDigital humanities in the DIMH ProjectÂť. Key aspects of engineersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; drawings, applied by the court to a number of purposes throughout the three centuries, are addressed under each heading. These illustrations and their authors were used by the crown to glean information on, control and transform cities and territories. The novel focus adopted enhances the understanding of the development, coding and usage of drawing. The participation of historians, art historians, architects and IT engineers attests to the interdisciplinary nature of the project and the changes taking place over the years in the study of images that lie halfway between art and science.

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