The Conception of Ramparts in the Sixteenth Century: Architecture, “Mathematics”, and Urban Design

The discovery of gunpowder and its military applications caused a revolution in the common systems of defence, which had not changed substantially from the Roman period. New methods of laying out urban defences in the second half of the sixteenth century was the product of a continuous response to the evolution of fire arms and their increasing power. The goal of this article is to explain these assertions, analysing in detail the factors that characterized the “science of fortification” in the sixteenth century.