Europe’s star cities are scattered all over Europe but their perfect geometrical beauty can only be fully admired when seen from above, as featured by US news network CNN.
… jewel of the early modern era…
… vertical walls gave way to low-lying ramparts…
CNN writes:
An entirely new, rational way to design fortified settlements, the ‘star cities’ of the 16th and 17th centuries were a jewel of the early modern era and engineered by some of the most brilliant minds of their time.
The science of building star-shaped bastion forts came into being in Italy during the Renaissance, when gunpowder and cannon rendered old medieval walls obsolete.
High, vertical walls gave way to low-lying ramparts, which offered less of a target, while wide moats, sloping earthworks and complex networks of protruding bastions would eliminate any blind spots and prevent besieging armies from coming anywhere near the ramparts….
This style of military architecture would have its golden era during the 1500s and particularly the 1600s, a period in which many parts of Europe saw almost uninterrupted warfare….
What follows is a selection of some of Europe’s most beautiful star cities…
