Drawing used as a tool for devising a new form of fortification during the Italian Renaissance: the example of two projects by Leonardo da Vinci

Abstract

The irruption of artillery marked the beginning of a rapid process to refound military architecture during the Renaissance. This need transcended the functional aspect to which fortification was traditionally associated, thus jeopardising the symbolic and representational connotations that medieval walls had hitherto represented in the collective imagination. Drawing, used as a medium to comprehend the new reality imposed by artillery, and as a tool to guide the thinking of the architects involved in this challenge, played an active role in refounding what is known today as the bastioned fortification. It laid the foundations for a new geometric and formal logic, discussed in this article. Two projects by Leonardo da Vinci, reconstructed by the author, serve as the basis for studying the geometric and formal basis on which this new idea of fortification was founded.

Keywords

• fortificaciones
• leonardo da vinci
• geometría
• forma