Palmanova Fortress

Palmanova is the Renaissance dream of the ideal city made real in brick, earth and water. From the ground it is a quiet town in the Friulian plain; from the air it is a perfect nine-pointed star, with three rings of fortifications, a hexagonal square at its heart and streets radiating out from the centre like the spokes of a wheel. The Republic of Venice founded it on 7 October 1593 on its exposed north-eastern frontier as a bulwark against Ottoman attack, and the date was chosen with care: it was the anniversary of the Christian victory at Lepanto in 1571 and the feast of Saint Justina, who became the town's patron.

The design gathered the best military thinking of its day. The veteran Venetian commander Giulio Savorgnan advised on the defences, Marcantonio Barbaro led the group of noblemen in charge of the project, and the architect Vincenzo Scamozzi is usually credited with the urban plan. Between the points of the star, bastions projected so that each could cover the next with crossfire, a moat ringed the whole, and entry was through three monumental gates, Porta Udine, Porta Cividale and Porta Aquileia. The first circuit, about seven kilometres around, took thirty years to build. A second ring was added between 1658 and 1690, and the outermost line of lunettes was completed under Napoleonic rule between 1806 and 1813. The finished fortress counts nine bastions, nine ravelins, nine lunettes and eighteen cavaliers. Palmanova was declared a national monument in 1960, and in 2017 it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Venetian Works of Defence between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

What makes it compelling is that the geometry is not only a map exercise but can be felt on foot. From the vast Piazza Grande, built in Istrian stone and ringed by the main public buildings, straight streets radiate towards the walls and the gates, cut by three nine-sided ring roads, so that almost every walk ends at the ramparts. The cathedral on the square, begun in 1603 and finished in 1636, has a façade of Istrian stone with statues of Saint Justina, Saint Mark and Christ the Redeemer.

The ideal city had a very human problem: nobody wanted to live in it. The historian Edward Muir notes that despite its elegant layout no settlers came, and by 1622 Venice was offering pardoned criminals free building plots and materials to move there. The town passed to Austria in 1815, joined Italy in 1866, and until 1918 stood close to the Italian–Austro-Hungarian border, serving as a military zone and hospital town during the First World War. Today it belongs to the association of the Most Beautiful Villages of Italy.

Getting there

Palmanova lies in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of north-eastern Italy, about 20 km south of Udine, 28 km from Gorizia and 54 km from Trieste, close to the junction of the A4 and A23 motorways. The nearest airport is Trieste Airport (TRS), about 15 km away. Palmanova has a railway station on the line between Udine and Cervignano, and there are bus connections; the town also lies on the Alpe Adria cycle route.