The controversies between Jacobo Fratín and Vespasian Gonzaga on the project of the citadel of Pamplona in the late sixteenth century

Abstract

The design and construction of the citadel of Pamplona required the delineation of numerous drawings by the most prestigious military engineers of the time. After the initial draft, prepared by Jacobo Palear Fratín in 1571, numerous disputes about technical aspects of the design of citadels happened between the different schools and family sagas. The search for the perfect machine of defence and the solution of the conflict between the different design opinions, forced to develop an increasingly accurate maps. Through this graphic documentation, the Council of War could take appropriate decisions in the distance, always under the paradigm of the citadel of Antwerp. The existing intimate relationship between written discourse and the image discourse in each project makes possible to reconstruct the history of the building.