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The Image and the City - The Defense of Corfù | 1/6 | |
Corfù: the Levant and defensive architecture I | ||
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The advances in architecture in
Following the Senate's
determination to make
Corfù 'the most powerful fortress that the times require',1 a
significant controversy arose in 1537. In his 'Military Discourses' ('Discorsi
militari') the General Captain Maria della Rovere shows us the bitter conflict
which pitted the maximum forces of the military against the engineers, and thus
probably against the most important engineer of them all, Michele Sanmicheli.
In spite of the 'necessity of the time that restricted and removed the liberty
of deliberation'2 the treatise points out some fundamental assumptions: the
superiority of those who possess the principles of the military art over
technicians, and the General Captain's power not only to establish hierarchies
and organise staff and operations, but also to avert delays caused by the
indecision of rulers, and hasten deliberations arriving from the capital, which
may also have been due to the distance separating Venice from its maritime
realms. In this case the issue of Corfù seemed to require solutions for
different problems regarding institutional organisation, and clarification of
the jurisdiction of General Captains, Venetian Provveditori, technicians, and government institutions themselves. Thus the
Magistracy of 'Provveditori sopra fortezze'
('Fortress Administrators')
was established in 1542, and a 1550 Senate decree sought to organise the
network of relationships between men at arms and political representatives of
the
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Venezia e il mare Le isole, le fortezze, le difese contro i Turchi © 1997 by the VENIVA consortium |