Giovanni Battista Antonelli (

Gatteo Gatteo ( rgn, Gatì) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Forlì-Cesena in the Italian region Emilia-Romagna, located about southeast of Bologna and about southeast of Forlì. As of 31 December 2004, it had a population of 7,252 and ...

Romagna Romagna ( rgn, Rumâgna) is an Italian historical region that approximately corresponds to the south-eastern portion of present-day Emilia-Romagna, North Italy. Traditionally, it is limited by the Apennines to the south-west, the Adriatic to t ...

, 1527 - Toledo, 1588) was a military engineer born in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

and died in Toledo Spain in 1588. His most important works was a series of watchtowers along the coast of

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. His brother

Battista Antonelli Battista Antonelli (or Bautista) (1547–1616) was a military engineer from a prestigious Italian family of military engineers in the service of the Habsburg monarchs of Austria and Spain. Biography Antonelli was born in Gatteo in Romagna, a ...

was also a military engineer.

Biography

He designed and built some military

fortification A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

s on the

Mediterranean coast The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the eas ...

of the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

for

during the second half of the sixteenth century. In 1568, King

Philip II of Spain Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...

had given to the noble Vespasian Gonzaga, mandated to carry out a plan of defense of the Mediterranean coast of Spain. For that, similarly, had already done in the

Kingdom of Sicily The Kingdom of Sicily ( la, Regnum Siciliae; it, Regno di Sicilia; scn, Regnu di Sicilia) was a state that existed in the south of the Italian Peninsula and for a time the region of Ifriqiya from its founding by Roger II of Sicily in 1130 un ...

in 1547 and 1552 with Ferramolino and Pietro del Grado, the nobleman was accompanied by an expert, the Antonelli, derived from inspection and the planned construction of the fortifications of port city of Cartagena, the coast of the

Kingdom of Valencia Kingdom commonly refers to: * A monarchy ruled by a king or queen * Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy Kingdom may also refer to: Arts and media Television * ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...

and the African ports of

Oran Oran ( ar, وَهران, Wahrān) is a major coastal city located in the north-west of Algeria. It is considered the second most important city of Algeria after the capital Algiers, due to its population and commercial, industrial, and cultural ...

and Mazalquivir. Within this project of fortification of the coast of Spain and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, was built a series of towers along the coast, the coast of the

Kingdom of Murcia After roughly two decades as a protectorate of the Crown of Castile, the territory of the Taifa of Murcia became the Kingdom of Murcia ( es, Reino de Murcia, links=no, a territorial jurisdiction of the Crown of Castile) in the wake of its Conques ...

and Valencia, and was undertaken the reconstruction of the

Castle of Santa Barbara A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

overlooking

Alicante Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...

(Spain) in 1562, the construction of the Benidorm Palace and the Tower of Santa Faz in Alicante in 1575 and the reservoir of

Tibi Tibi can refer to: * Tibi, Alicante, a municipality in Spain * Tibi (footballer) (1951–2021), Portuguese footballer * Ahmad Tibi, Israeli Arab politician * Bassam Tibi, professor of International Relations * Eitan Tibi (born 1987), an Israeli fo ...

(1580). In addition, the walls were built to protect

Peñíscola Peníscola () or Peñíscola (), anglicised as Peniscola, is a municipality in the Province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain. The town is located on the Costa del Azahar, north of the Serra d'Irta along the Mediterranean coast. It is a po ...

. From 1580 he devoted himself to the study of the navigability of the

river Tagus The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections, to e ...

from

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

to Toledo, a project that never became a reality (there is a satirical novel of

Ricardo Sanchez Candelas Ricardo is the Spanish and Portuguese cognate of the name Richard. It derived from Proto-Germanic ''*rīks'' 'king, ruler' + ''*harduz'' 'hard, brave'. It may be a given name, or a surname. People Given name *Ricardo de Araújo Pereira, Portugu ...

, who took over the project entitled: "Navigated only his dreams". In the early 1580s he participated in the designs of fortifications planned to be built in the

Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pass ...

to prevent the entry of non-Spanish ships to the Pacific from the Atlantic. The Spanish settlement attempt of the strait had however by 1587 turned into failure with only a few colonist surviving starvation and disease.

References

External links

*
Brief biography of Giovanni Battista Antonelli
{{DEFAULTSORT:Antonelli Italian military engineers 16th-century Spanish architects People of the Spanish colonial Americas 1527 births 1588 deaths 16th century in Puerto Rico Spanish colonial period of Cuba Spanish West Indies 16th-century Italian architects 16th-century Italian engineers