Location: L'Aquila Province Map
Constructed: 1528 by Viceroy Philibert of Orange
Forte Spagnolo or Spanish Fort is located in L'Aquila Province, Abruzzo region of Central Italy. Forte Spagnolo was constructed in 1528 on the orders of Viceroy Philibert of Orange after unsuccessful rebellion against Spanish rule a year before. The citadel was erected under supervision of Pirro (Pedro) Luis Escriva. Improvement of gun powder required better defenses and thicker walls. Forte Spagnolo walls measure a thickness of 30 meters. Additionally a ditch was dug around the citadel that is 23 meters wide and 14 meters deep. Forte Spagnolo construction ended in 1567 after impoverishment of the city. In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte led his army into Italy. His troops failed to take on thick defenses. Subsequently fortress was turned into prison. In 1951 the restoration project was undertaken after damages it received during World War II. Today Forte Spagnolo houses the Museo Nazionale d'Abruzzo.
In 1503 the
Spaniards conquered the Kingdom of Naples placing a viceroy of their
trust at the head and occupying all the command posts. In L'Aquila,
the appointment of Count Ludovico Franchi as Lord of the City marked
the definitive decline of all forms of city autonomy and contributed
to the decline of the city, until then one of the most flourishing
in the Kingdom.
In the hope of regaining lost freedom and
privileges, the Aquilans joined the anti-Spanish league headed by
the French, to which the city gates were opened in 1527, which
however was defeated in 1529. L'Aquila was occupied militarily by
Filiberto d'Orange, viceroy and lieutenant of the Kingdom of Naples,
sacked and forced to pay an exorbitant tax into the Spanish coffers.
Furthermore, the city was detached from its countryside, which was
divided into fiefs and given in possession to captains of the
imperial army, inflicting a very hard blow to its economy.
In the same year, Filiberto d'Orange identified the
highest point of the city walls in the north-eastern corner of the
city, where already in 1401 King Ladislao I had a fortress built,
and there began the construction of a small fortress.
The
Castellina, built "to keep the citizens in check with a large
garrison" is in fact the tangible sign of oppression not only
political and military but also, and above all, economic and social.
Completed in 1530, it was a modest but massive bastion building and
housed a castellan and a garrison of the imperial army. However, it
was soon destined to make way for a much more imposing fortress.
In 1532, the new viceroy of the
Kingdom of Naples, Pedro Álvarez de Toledo y Zúñiga, wanted to
prepare a functional fortification system making the pre-existing
structures more powerful and more modern, adapting them to the
evolution of obsidional techniques, creating new works that could
support the attack of modern firearms artillery. The most famous
military architects of the time, most of them from Spain, were
called to participate in the realization of this immense defensive
work.
The revolt of 1527 in favor of the French once again
proved to be a clever pretext taken by the Spaniards to condemn
the city to fully bear the costs of building the new castle, paying
100,000 ducats per year. In 1534 the architect, as well as captain
of the army of Charles V, Pedro Luis Escrivà (Escribàs) of Valencia,
was commissioned with the project.
The construction, which
required enormous space, involved the destruction of an entire
neighborhood. Indeed, for the construction of the enormous cannons
placed to defend the fortress, the bells of the city were cast,
including the great Bell of Justice placed on the Civic Tower. In
the intentions of the viceroy, the Fort had to perform a double
function: that of a defensive bulwark in the extreme northern border
of the reign of Charles V, and that of a control point for the
traffic of wool along the axis that connected Naples to Florence.
The works proceeded
expeditiously until 1549 and then slowed down until 1567 when,
changed the political conditions and removed the heavy burden of
construction on the city, they came to a complete stop, although
only the strictly military works of the building had been completed.
Escrivà himself in 1537 abandoned the direct direction of the works
to move to Naples where he had obtained the prestigious task of
rebuilding Castel Sant'Elmo. He was replaced by Gian Girolamo
Escrivà, probably his relative, who directed the works until 1541.
The Fort, which was never completed, was never even used by the
Spaniards in important military actions, since in the second half of
the sixteenth century the center of interests of the Spanish Empire
moved from the Mediterranean basin first to Northern Europe and then
to South America.
It was therefore first used as a residence
by the Spanish governor and, following the French invasion, as
accommodation for the transalpine troops. Instead, it suffered
serious damage during the Second World War, a period in which it was
used by the German occupation troops as a command and prison.
The restoration and the seat of the National Museum of Abruzzo
After the war, thwarted the danger of transforming
the Fort into a prison, it passed from the defense administration to
that of public education and after the restoration which took place
in 1951 by the Superintendence of Monuments and Galleries of Abruzzo
and Molise, it became the seat of the National Museum d'Abruzzo and
numerous other institutions such as the Aquilano Observatory, the
National Institute of Geophysics, the Aquilan Concert Society as
well as, of course, the Superintendence for the Environmental,
Architectural, Artistic and Historical Heritage for Abruzzo (BAAAS),
proposing itself as the new social and cultural center of the city.
The rooms of the Fort now house an important Auditorium, and a
Conference Room, as well as exhibition spaces for exhibitions and
conferences.
The Fort suffered extensive damage following the
2009 earthquake, especially as regards the bridge connecting the
moat and the upper floors.
The imposing
fortress, built following the most up-to-date fortification
techniques of the time, has a square plan, with massive bastions
with sharp profiles at the four corners with a so-called spearhead
pattern, each in the direction of the four cardinal points. In its
features, the Spanish Fort has many similarities with the Castle of
Barletta and the Castle of Copertino, also with a quadrangular plan
with four lanceolate bastions, built during the same period of the
reign of Charles V, and, presumably, on behalf of the same viceroy
of Naples, Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, not by Escrivà, but by the
architect Evangelista Menga.
The Fort is surrounded by a deep
and wide moat, never filled with water, and is accessible from a
masonry bridge, once with a partially retractable wooden floor,
destroyed in 1883 and replaced by the current one in stone, by means
of which leads to the entrance portal depicting the coat of arms of
Charles V. The structure is surrounded by a huge wooded park, the
Castle Park, an authentic green lung of the city.
The majestic white portal, flanked by Doric pilasters and surmounted
by the precious crowning with the double-headed eagle, emblem of the
House of Austria, is unanimously considered an absolute masterpiece
of its kind. In memory of the events that led to the construction of
the Fort and in order to discourage any future attempt at rebellion,
it bears the inscription in the upper part:
AD REPRIMENDAM
AUDACIAM AQUILANORUM
The design of the artifact is, in all likelihood, to be attributed to Escrivà who reproduced its features also in the portal he himself built at Castel Sant'Elmo in Naples, albeit in a more modest way. The construction, on the other hand, is the work of the Aquila Salvati Salvati and Pietro Di Stefano, a pupil of Saved Romano, a symptom of a lively and important local tradition in the sculpture established by Silvestro dell'Aquila and his circle.
The four bastions, which stand out as a
fundamental element in the structural conception of the building,
representing the primary location for both the offense and the
defense of the Fort. With a lanceaolata shape, they were built to
support and deflect any cannon fire.
Due to their size and
complexity, they were each able to autonomously resist the assaults
should the invader penetrate the central body. They were, in fact,
equipped with an autonomous tank for water supply. Each bastion
contains two large buildings, the casemates, aimed at protecting men
or pieces of artillery and closed at times, with a circular opening
to dispose of the fumes. From the casemates you have access to the
counter mines, a system of tunnels in series, built inside the
foundations of the structure, which allowed to block the enemy
mines.
The ramparts are connected to the curtain
by double protrusions, an authentic feature of the structure and an
important innovation in military architecture. This shrewdness,
which contributed to improving the plasticity of the building, had
the important function of doubling the number of guns, making the
flanking fire more powerful and decreasing, due to their angle, the
possibility for enemy shots of penetrate inside.
Each side of
the building, externally clad in travertine, measures a good one
hundred and thirty meters. Built on the living rock, its walls are
remarkably thick, ranging from ten meters at the foundation, to five
meters at the top of the curtain and is absolutely devoid of
decorative elements, except for the precious stone portal.
The inner courtyard has a square shape. The south-east side,
corresponding to the entrance, shows a porch with a double order of
pilasters, which in Escrivà's projects probably had to extend to the
entire perimeter of the court but was never completed.
Of particular charm and interest are the basement of
the Fort, whose events can be connected to the prison structures
housed in the fortress since its construction. In fact, also due to
the repressive and intimidating connotation that characterizes it,
the Fort was for a long time used as a prison even if, at first,
this use was limited to the ground floor, close to the east bastion.
Below these, it is plausible the existence of an underground prison,
a dreary and dark dungeon obtained on the extrados of the vault that
covers the access ramp to the lower casemate of the east bastion.
The climatic conditions of the underground allowed the
mummification of hundreds of bodies of people buried in an
underground chapel. Almost all of these mummies were then buried in
the city cemetery, except for four examples still preserved in the
basement of the Fort, in a partially glazed container.