The Fenestrelle Fortress, better known as the Fenestrelle Fort is a fortress overlooking Fenestrelle. It is the symbol of the Metropolitan City of Turin, Piedmont, northern Italy. It is the biggest alpine fortification in Europe, having a surface area of 1,300,000 m².
The fortress, built by Savoy between 1728 and 1850 under the design of the architect Ignazio Bertola, guards the access to Turin via the Chisone valley and stands at altitudes between 1,100 and 1,800 m. The territory was acquired in 1709 by the Duchy of Savoy (later known as the Kingdom of Sardinia) after the defeat of the French at Fort Mutin (Fenestrelle).[1]
Fort Mutin was restored, but Victor Amadeus II found it insufficient for the protection of the Val Chisone. So he instructed military architectIgnazio Bertola to design and build a complex of forts in Fenestrelle. They were connected by a 3 km long wall, an indoor staircase of 3,996 steps unique in Europe and an outside staircase of 2,500 steps.
The construction began in the summer of 1728 and ended in 1793; then it started again in 1836, ending definitively in 1850.
Besides Ignazio Bertola, other engineers and military architects worked at Fenestrelle; among them: Vittorio Amedeo Varino de La Marche, Lorenzo Bernardino Pinto (who was one of Bertola’s apprentices and also worked at the Fort of Exilles), Nicolis di Robilant and Carlo Andrea Rana.[4]
After World War II, the fort was abandoned and left to decay, most of the available material being plundered. In 1990 a redevelopment action, guided by a group of volunteers, known as Progetto San Carlo (ONLUS) was started.
In the 1999 it has become the symbol of the former Province of Turin and in 2007 the World Monuments Fund has included it among the 100 most important archaeological sites of the world.
References
^ abGriffith, Paddy (2006). The Vauban Fortifications of France. Osprey. pp. 18, 38. ISBN1-84176-875-8.
^Riccardo Chiarle (2006). "La fortezza di Fenestrelle". Panorami (in Italian) (63): 36–40.
^ ab"La Storia". La fortezza di Fenestrelle (in Italian). Associazione Progetto San Carlo - Forte di Fenestrelle. Archived from the original on 4 August 2011. Retrieved 13 December 2011.
^Mauro Minola (2012). Fortezze del Piemonte e Valle d'Aosta (in Italian) (Second ed.). Susalibri. p. 127.
^Forte di Fenestrelle, la Grande Muraglia Piemontese (in Italian). Turin: IL PUNTO. 2009.
^I prigionieri dei Savoia. La vera storia della Congiura di Fenestrelle. Editori Laterza. 2012.