Militarising’ dominions and ‘globalising’ knowledge. Architects and military engineers in the Mediterranean during the early modern age

Abstract

Inspired by the reassessment of the strategic importance of the kingdom of Sicily in sixteenth-century Europe and the long Spanish presence in the Italian peninsula, this text adopts a broad geographic and chronological framework to examine the issue in other southern Italian regions. The period’s cultural landscape will be the backdrop against which we examine the solid experience of architects and engineers in military matters, including cartography practice and the practical skills gained in military construction sites. New solutions to defensive problems, accounts of military actions, and plans of to-be fortified places give useful insights into their cultural training, which combined theoretical and applied knowledge, and in addition, was regarded as a must in the Early Modern Age.