Review article
https://doi.org/10.17018/portal.2015.7
St. Michael’s Fortress in Šibenik in the Candian War
Ivo Glavaš
orcid.org/0000-0001-9576-6495
; Ministarstvo kulture, Uprava za zaštitu kulturne baštine, Konzervatorski odjel u Šibenik, Šibenik, Hrvatska
Abstract
Our knowledge of St. Michael’s Fortress in Šibenik largely concerns the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period.
Neither archaeological nor conservation research provide information on the history of the fortress and the cultural layers in the period of firearm use. This particularly refers to the major and long–lasting Candian War (1649–1669) between Venice and the Ottomans. In this period, St. Michael’s Fortress was significantly reinforced by the addition of cannon batteries in the east and the west, as can be seen in the isolario Mari, Golfi, Isole, Spiagge, Porti, Citta, Fortezze della Dalmazia, Ed Altri Luoghi Dell’ Istria, Quarner, Dalmazia, Albania, Epiro, e Livadia drawn by the Venetian cartographer Vincenzo Coronelli between 1688 and 1694, and also on the map of the fortress with a caption that is kept in the National Library of St. Mark‘s and can also be attributed to Coronelli. The map had probably originated between two explosions of the gunpowder magazine (in 1663 and 1752) and provides plentiful information on the existence of fortification elements in the fortress that were lost for researchers following a radical restoration treatment. On the west side in the subwall of the fortress, there used to be two cannon batteries named Barone Battery and Span Battery, while on the east side of the fortress, new cannon positions can be discerned, named Gonzaga Battery and Madonina Cavalier. Names of the cannon batteries can be related to the generals serving in the Venetian Army during the Candian War, Baron Christoph Martin von Degenfeld and Camillo Gonzaga. It is not known whether the Span Battery was ever used or how the Gonzaga Battery was mounted onto the fortress. The position of the Madonina Cavalier can today be identified on the embankment where the town cemetery of St. Anne was built. There were plans to relocate the gunpowder magazine outside the fortress toward the west, while a traverse was to be built from the tower in the fortress subwall adjacent to two ramparts and toward the so–called Dolac Rampart, wherefore this portion of the Dolac Rampart was from the inner side reinforced by buttresses whose arches carried the pathway. In the town area of Crnica, Camillo Gonzaga had built some fortification elements with Onofrio del Campo in 1657 that can be discerned from archival photographs of this area from between the two world wars.
Keywords
St. Michael’s Fortress; National Library of St. Mark‘s; Coronelli; Candian War; Christoph Martin von Degenfeld; Camillo Gonzaga
Hrčak ID:
149924
URI
Publication date:
21.12.2015.
Visits: 2.556 *