«Alicante, terra e fortezza». La città e le sue fortificazioni in un disegno del 1611

Abstract

This essay will introduce an unpublished urban perspective of Alicante. This drawing is part of a manuscript kept in the Library Riccardiana of Florence; it is a travel diary written in the first fifteen years of the XVIIth century by a sailor on board the galley of the Tuscan Order of St. Stephen. The perspective was sketched in 1611 and is accompanied by a description of the locations, with particular attention to the fortifications. Alicante is portrayed from the sea and from the northeast: the author is on a galley, a short distance from the coast and he uses a low point of view on the horizon. As a result, it provides a reliable picture of an urban and territorial system, comparable to the best-known iconography and it is therefore an interesting testimony of the sites and fortifications before the French bombardment of 1691.