Antwerp Citadel
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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... in 1567, when Alva came to the Netherlands, he brought with him a noted engineer, Paciotto d'Urbino, who had already built citadels at Turin and Cambrai, and was at once sent to build one at Antwerp. Two thousand workmen were employed upon it daily, and it was finished in little more than a year, at a great cost. It was reckoned the masterpiece of the age, and Strada says that Paciotto " got himself a great name by it, being from thence called the inventor of modern fortification." --Vauban, Montalembert, Carnot; Engineer studies (1887) |
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Antwerp Citadel was a pentagonal bastion fort built to defend and dominate the city of Antwerp in the early stages of the Dutch Revolt. It has been described as "doubtlesse the most matchlesse piece of modern Fortification in the World" and as "one of the most studied urban installations of the sixteenth century".
Finished in 1572, its demolition was started in 1874 to make room for Antwerpen Zuid (Antwerp South) and the Zuiderdokken.
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History
The citadel was designed by the Italian engineer Francesco Paciotto and built on the orders of the Duke of Alva. Initial construction was completed in 1572. After the Sack of Antwerp (1576) the citizens partially demolished the fortification, but it was reconstructed after the Fall of Antwerp (1585).
The citadel saw action towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when it was defended by diehard Bonapartists. The Siege of Antwerp (1814) continued for a month after Napoleon's abdication.
After the Belgian Revolution of 1830, Dutch forces remained in control of the citadel until the Siege of Antwerp (1832).
Demolition began in 1874 and was completed in 1881. The site became a new neighbourhood of the city, Zuid, in which the most prominent construction was the new building for the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp.
Governors of the citadel
In Spanish the title of the governor of the citadel was Castellano de Amberes ("Castellan of Antwerp").
- –1576: Sancho d'Avila
- 1577: Philippe III de Croÿ
- 1587–1596: Don Cristóbal de Mondragón
- 1606-1622: Don Íñigo de Borja
- -1674: Don Pedro Sanpayo.
- 1674-1678: Don Mateo de Villegas.
- 1679–1693: Don Francisco Marcos de Velasco
- 1693-1695: Don Diego Gomez, Marques of Espinosa
- 1695-1700: Don Pedro alvarez de Vega.
- 1700-: Don Luis de Borja, Marquess of Caracena.
- 1830–1832: David Hendrik Chassé
- Don Fernando de Solís y Vargas de Carvajal, died 1669.
- Don Geronimo de Cobos, died 1643
- Don Diego de Heredia y Arambulo ; died 1704
- Don Antonio de Castro y Tello, died 1659
- Don Julian Martinez de la Parra
Our Lady of the Citadel
In the Sint-Joriskerk there is still a brotherhood called Our Lady of the Citadel (Onze-Lieve-Vrouw van het Kasteel).
Background
The religious revolution of the Reformation erupted in violent riots in August 1566, as in other parts of the Low Countries. The regent Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was swept aside when Philip II sent the Duke of Alba at the head of an army the following summer. When the Eighty Years' War broke out in 1572, commercial trading between Antwerp and the Spanish port of Bilbao collapsed and became impossible. On 4 November 1576, Spanish soldiers plundered the city. During the Spanish Fury 6,000 citizens were massacred, 800 houses were burnt down, and over 2 million sterling of damage was done.
Antwerp became the capital of the Dutch revolt. In 1585, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, captured it after a long siege and as part of the terms of surrender its Protestant citizens were given two years to settle their affairs before quitting the city. Most went to the United Provinces in the north, starting the Dutch Golden Age. Antwerp's banking was controlled for a generation by Genoa, and Amsterdam became the new trading centre.
See also
- Fortifications of Antwerp
- Spanish occupation of Antwerp
- Noordkasteel
- Francesco Paciotto
- National redoubt of Belgium
- Leopold De Wael
- Zuid (Antwerp)
