Original scientific paper
THE BULWARK OF THE DUBROVNIK MINČETA FORTRESS IN THE MICHELOZZO’S CONCEPTION
Ana Deanović
; Zagreb
Ivo Tenšek
; Zagreb
Abstract
The famous Florentine architect’s activity in the construction of fortifications is not much known in his homeland. Thus his achievements in the building of the defensive military works in Dubrovnik have a particular significance. They are the more important not only for throwing some light on Michelozzo’s personality in his new capacity, but also for revealing his extraordinary accomplishements in that field – accomplishements standng out not in Dalmatia alone, but also in the world of military works at large.
Michelozzo’s fortifications involve the defence of the landward side of the city walls. By the erection of a bulwark with circular structures providing defense for mediaeval towers, and, at the same time a space for the use of modern fire arms. In addition to these open spaces in the bulwark complex, Michelozzo arranged the defence in galleries on several levels. From the semicircular galleries the defenders reached the casemates, which could be considered the first of their kind, since they were not only built 20 years earlier than those constructed by B. Pontelli at Ostia, but were much more moedrn than the ones built by the latter. Michelozzo abandoned the earlier, essentially mediaeval conception of a split system of defence, and connected all the defensive points on the walls both horizontally and vertically, attaching special importance to the bulwark where its protected staircases enabled the defenders to move unharmed from one part of the city to another. It is here, in the Minčeta bulwark, that we are astonished by the distinctness of the master’s conception which helped him to solve the problem of the function of fortifications in the transition period between the middle ages and the modern world. A war machine, conceived with an unusual precision, has been preserved here in all its outlines and with details of its inside beauty, showing a harmonious standard of an almost antique clarity.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
160184
URI
Publication date:
23.12.1980.
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