Cities at War in Early Modern Europe

by Martha Pollak

Overview

Between 1550 and 1700, artillery siege warfare transformed the European city, which was theorized, fortified, violated, rebuilt, and celebrated by leading artists and architects. The fortified perimeter, with its regular bastions, redefined the identity of the early modern city.Military planning also generated new forms of urban spaces, such as the orderly grid, the tree-lined avenue, the great central square dominated by triumphal sculpture, and the greenbelt that provided clear boundaries and controlled viewpoints. In Cities at War in Early Modern Europe, Martha Pollak offers a pan-European, richly illustrated study of early modern military urbanism, an international style of urban design characterized by uniformity, geometrical clarity, architectural economy, and unadorned monumentality. Pollak examines this new urbanism as visualized by engravers, painters, and cartographers in accurate plans and powerful panoramic views.Her comparative, transnational study ranges from Britain to the Ottoman Empire, and from Malta to Scandinavia, and focuses on major centers – Naples, Paris, Antwerp, Stockholm—and “fortress cities” such as Valletta and Palmanova, which are still defined by their immense, geometrically perfect fortifications.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521113441
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/09/2010
Pages:	370
Product dimensions:	8.80(w) x 11.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Martha Pollak is Professor of Architectural History at the University of Illinois in Chicago. A recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Kress Foundation, and the American Academy in Rome, she is the author and editor of several books, including Turin, 1564–1680: Urban Design, Military Culture and the Creation of the Absolutist Capital.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. The geometry of power: pentagonal citadels and the emergence of military urbanism; 2. Military culture and the dissemination of urban knowledge; 3. Siege views: the war of military images; 4. The forms of military urbanism: streets, defensive fortification, and public spaces; 5. Celebrating peace: triumphs, war games, and the transformation of urban space; Epilogue: fireworks and illuminated architecture.

Editorial Reviews

"Martha Pollak has produced a deeply researched study, with a cascade of details for the experts. Its ambitious coverage will rightly turn it, I suspect, into a major reference work."
Lauro Martines, The Times Literary Supplement

"Recommended."
Choice

"A valuable work for students of the early modern period, this book may also be read with interest by students of fortification design or of the interaction of war and society."
A. A. Nofi, StrategyPage

"This is very much an architectural historian’s take on the significant and wide-ranging theme of war and the city."
Peter Clark, The Journal of Modern History

"It is convincingly pan-European and serves as an excellent overview of European fortifications with a wonderful number of illustrations."
Ian Verstegen, Moore College of Art and Design

"… a tour de force of cosmopolitan breadth, analytical acumen, and close attention to textual, visual, and bibliographic detail."
James Amelang, Sixteenth Century Journal

"The level of erudition is superb, as Pollak condenses roughly three hundred years of pan-European history into a manageable 350-page work. It is full of interesting detail and wonderful examples."
Robert Tiegs, H-War

From the Publisher