Coastal towers in the Mediterranean of XVI century: a comparison between Sicilian and Valencian cases

Abstract

Watch towers, dotting the coasts of countries bordering the Mediterranean, characterize the landscape in which they rise and constitute a system of architectural emergencies of absolute relevance. At the end of the sixteenth century, Spanish crown upgraded a massive fortification of the Mediterranean coasts. The aim of this paper is the comparison between the solutions adopted for the watch towers in Sicily and those existing along the Valencian coast. In the Kingdom of Valencia the towers come from the military engineer Giovanni Battista Antonelli school (Gatteo, 1527 - Toledo, 1588); in Sicily, the towers are often works of the military engineer Camillo Camilliani (Florence, XVI century - Palermo, 1603), from whom they take their name "camillianee". In this paper we propose four towers: Manfria and Sant’Anna regarding the Sicilian coast, San Vicente and Torre Nostra as for Valencian one. They were analyzed by taking advantage of the current digital technologies (photo modeling and 3D laser scanning), in support of several analysis such as geometric-spatial, material and technical-built, with the aim of providing an appropriate approach to the correct knowledge of the artifacts and proceed with a possible strategy to safeguard and exploitation of these towers. This contribution was made in the frame of the R & D project entitled "Surveillance and Defense Towers of the Valencian Coast. Metadata generation and 3D models for interpretation and effective enhancement" TOVIVA proyect, reference HAR2013-41859-P. The project is funded by the National Program for Fostering Excellence in Scientific and Technical Research, National Sub-Program for Knowledge Generation, Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Government of Spain).