Audiotour 2_THE 16TH CENTURY BASTION_en

The Sixteenth Century Bastion

Between 1503 and 1508, during the Florentine rule of Arezzo, Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici commissioned the construction of the Fortress of Arezzo to Giuliano da Sangallo, who was later joined by his brother Antonio da Sangallo the Elder. This first fortification, destroyed following the rebellion of Arezzo in 1529, was replaced by the one we still see today, designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in 1540.

It was characterized by a lobed or "heart-shaped" bastions, partly still visible and integrated into the bastions “del Soccorso” and “della Chiesa”.

The bastion that we see in front, considered already a ruin in the historical cartography of the 1700s, where it is called "ancient walls", was brought to light during the rrestoration works in 2012 and has the characteristic heart shape of the first phase of the Fortress.

The lower part of the structure appears to have collapsed as a result of cannon shots that damaged the Fortress so heavily as to determine the need to build a new one, adapted to the new style of warfare and with a buffer area free from buildings in the immediate surroundings.

A spur of irregular rock to the east of the bastion indicates that at the time of shelling the area outside it was not yet completed. The Florentines evidently had the need to build first of all the defensive curtains and focus on the outside only later, but the operation was interrupted by the uprising of Arezzo in 1529.