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CHAPTER 22
TheWalls of Santo Domingo and
Documentation of the Construction Projects
by the Antonelli Family
A research project for the study of the construction
features of Dominican military architecture
By Sandro Parrinello
DICAr Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the University of Pavia
he Antonelli family’s contribution to defining the construction characteristics of the Spanish forti-
fications in the New World is quite well known. As Italian military engineers at the service of the
Spanish Crown, the Antonellis planned a range of fortresses in the Caribbean to defend the colonies
against the threat of pirates. This planning decisively characterized the development of the urban
systems and infrastructures that guided the colonization process in the Americas. However, despite these his-
torical considerations, there is not a lot of information available regarding the specific contribution that Battis-
ta Antonelli, the most notable figure in this process, made in establishing the fortifications of Santo Domingo.
Often when retracing the defensive perimeter of major cities, such as Panama City, Cartagena, Porto-
bello, Veracruz, San Juan, or Havana, the work of the Italian military engineer coincided with the definition
of significant morphologies that characterized the entire urban setting and not just the defensive areas. The
image that the city presented to those who arrived did not depend on the composition of these walls and
batteries alone. Instead, the design of the enclosure and the urban boundaries themselves were connected
in a crucial way to the composition of the internal design of the streets and plazas. These were generally
positioned on a regular grid that in their orientation itself found a more comfortable arrangement with
regard to the climatic conditions and needs for communication and control directly depending on the de-
fense system. In addition to these aspects, one must add a necessary knowledge and general command of
the terrain, the slopes, and the qualities of the soil on which the city was built. The construction features
related to fortifications depended on these aspects, though in general, the entire system of infrastructures
that the city needed did so as well.
The “modern-style” fortified structures are characterized by the geometrical designs that confer a polyg-
onal shape to the masonry; anticipating a slope in the curtain of walls is sufficient to offset the attacks from
the new artillery weapons which had only recently appeared on the battlefields. While theories related to
these models are attributed to the great theoreticians of the Italian Renaissance and can be dated back to the
mid-fifteenth century, it was nonetheless during the sixteenth century that these considerations found more
extensive circulation and the most fruitful experimentation. With the discovery of the Americas, the appear-
ance of the battlefields changed. The defenses along the coasts that Spain was testing in the Mediterranean to
protect itself from the threat of barbaric Corsair attacks found in the overseas territories a more extensive field
for experimentation and innovation. During the years following the arrival in the Americas, the art of warfare
changed, introducing possibilities for artillery in the trenches and powerful cannons that could destroy the
thin, medieval style walls. Compared to attacks by land, these systems did not take a long time to achieve the
same effect on the ships accommodating these fire systems onboard. The large new warships held numerous
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