Technical and systemic keys and context of Hispanic fortifications on Western Mediterranean coast

Abstract

[EN] On recent years, we have developed two new ways of scientific approximation to the study of fortifications: the technical analysis and the systemical analysis. Now, it is possible to recognize a personality and a characteristic technical evolution of the Hispanic fortification departing from the works, the debates, and the treatises generated since the end of 15th Century to the 18th Century. It is also possible to recognize, since the first periods, a clear intention to understand the fortification as a territorial system in which every single piece has its own mission and presents some specific characters that are not understandable from the independent study of every fortification. The current presentations review the technical and systemical keys that allow us to recognize and characterize the Hispanic fortification on the Western Mediterranean Sea. Those keys allow us to surpass the excessive valuation given to the orthodox following of the treatises and to recognize the value of technological landmark of many of the most heterodoxical fortifications. Those keys also allow us to reinterpret our vision of the landscape value of the fortification from new technical and systemic aspects.