“...Per non entrare in spesa de’ baloardi...” Il progetto dellafortificazione ibrida di Gaspare Beretta per Domodossola

• Paolo Negri ^[1]
  1. [1] Ricercatore indipendente, Villadossola, Italia
• Localización: FORTMED2023. Defensive architecture of the mediterranean : vol. XIII, XIV, XV / Marco Giorgio Bevilacqua (dir. congr.), Denise Ulivieri (aut.), 2023, ISBN 978-84-1396-129-3, págs. 311-320
• Idioma: italiano
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• Resumen

  • Thirty-five years of slow psychophysical decline did not prevent Charles II, king of Spain, to face the recurrent wars that, during the 17th Century, were threatening the Empire’s borders. It didn’t even prevent him from planning and ordering visits and inspections to his fortified cities, often providing for the necessary adjustments inspired by the latest 17th Century fortifications of French and Flemish schools. The Milanesado, a decisive intersection on the “Spanish Road”, didn’t avoid the reorganization, even if it hadn’t been subjected to any substantial land downsizing. For Domodossola, situated on the eastern border, the governor of the Milanesado (1678-1686), Count of Melgar, hired Gaspare Beretta, a skilled and experienced camp-master, to devise the transition to the modern fortified system. Drawings, documents and calculations are being kept in the Biblioteca Trivulziana in Milan. The imperial military intentions were not always followed by suitable funding, therefore Gaspare Beretta envisioned for the city an hybrid fortified system, which preserved the existing pentagonal medieval circuit (1306-1321), refraining from the replacement of the angular towers with ramparts, financially too expensive. Having abandoned the grazing defense ensured by the ramparts, Beretta opted for the provision of counter guards located in the moat (doubled in front of the castle and the city gate), protruding in front of the corners and protected by connecting traverse with towers. The building inside the walls would have been dismantled for the construction of ramparts set against the existing city walls. The project was started (1686) but soon abandoned for lack of funding. Therefore, the instance of Domodossola is to be added to the universe of the Spanish king’s “paper ramparts”, attested, over the century, in the magnificent projects he conceived but never accomplished.