Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.58565/vda.3.1.14
Our Lady’s battery in Vis
Sanja Buble
orcid.org/0000-0002-7215-4848
Sažetak
Our Lady’s battery in Vis was built during the second Austrian administration (from 1814 to 1918) at the bottom of the spacious bay of Vis, not far from the parish church of Our Lady of Spilica, after which it was named. As part of the defence system of the war port of Vis, it was the last point of defence in case of enemy breach into the interior of the bay of Vis. Since immediately after the Austrian demilitarization of the island it was converted into a public, civilian facility that has been maintained to this day, the original appearance of Our Lady’s Battery has been almost completely preserved. The battery, therefore, stands out in the corpus of Austrian fortification buildings on the island of Vis, mostly devastated or demolished and, today, unrecognizable, and unreadable in space.
The text provides a historical overview of the events that preceded the construction
of Our Lady’s Battery and explains its role in war events in the middle of the 19th
century, especially in the conflict between the Italian and Austrian navies, where
the Italians wanted to secure supremacy over the Adriatic by conquering the island
of Vis, and which, by the 1866 Battle of Vis, ended with the Italian fleet defeated.
The paper gives an overview of the transformations of the Battery that took placeafter the Austrians left the military positions on the island of Vis at the end of the
19th century and all the way until the beginning of the 21st century. According to
the analysis of historical drawings, maps and technical plans from the cartographic
collections of the War Archives at the Austrian State Archives and the Croatian
State Archives, some of which are published for the first time, the complete process
of building Our Lady’s Battery has been reconstructed, beginning with the
conception of the fortification system of the island of Vis and the formation of the
defence system of the war port of Vis through the design and construction process
to its final appearance and armament. As archival material, the drawings are
not only a source of data on the original appearance of the historic building, but
they also provide data on the standard of production and furnishing of technical
drawings and document a high level of knowledge of Austrian military engineers
and constructors regarding the application of innovative technical solutions during
construction. The appendix to the text provides an overview of the significance of
the cartographic collection of the Austrian State Archives, the War Archives in
Vienna in the context of the study of the history of construction.
Ključne riječi
island of Vis; fortifications; second Austrian administration; cartographic collections of the War Archives in Vienna; Our Lady’s battery; military engineers
Hrčak ID:
293979
URI
Datum izdavanja:
24.2.2023.
Posjeta: 722 *