Macchiatonda Fort: A Spanish Coastal Lookout in Italy
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Spanish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page4 sections
History
Spanish coastal defenses
Macchiatonda Fort is a seventeenth-century Spanish coastal lookout in Capalbio, Italy. Spanish builders made it part of the defensive system at the southern end of the State of the Presidi, a Spanish-controlled coastal territory in Tuscany. The State of the Presidi initially owned the fort. Though it looked like a residential farmhouse, it served as a lookout.
Decommissioning and later use
The fort was decommissioned in the first half of the nineteenth century, when the area became part of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, an early-modern Tuscan state governed by a grand duke. By then, the threat of pirate raids had ended. The complex subsequently deteriorated over a prolonged period. In the summer of 1969, it provided a setting for the film The Seed of Man.
Remains
The fort is a two-level, quadrangular building on the Tyrrhenian coast beside Lake Burano. Four angled corner pillars give it a fortified appearance and suggest the corners of a sloping base, though the base does not extend across the lower level. Entrance openings capped by horizontal beams lead into the building at ground level. Several quadrangular windows pierce the plastered upper walls. The structure ends in a roof that slopes down on all sides, without a crowning feature. Its masonry is generally deteriorated. Comparison with footage of the 1969 film indicates that the beach eroded over a period of about forty years.
