The fortified landscapes of theAdriatic basin

The antithetical banks of the Adriatic provide a wide, diversified range of fortified landscapes, tied in with the defence demand of the long, marine channel governed by the “Serenissima” which controlled the commercial activities of the entire “gulf”. In reality, the fertile basin constituted a rendezvous between east and west and the distance covered favoured profitable exchanges, not only commercial, between the two worlds, by transporting, together with goods, vocabulary and traditions, artistic expressions and idioms which, by blending with one another, gave birth to important cultural expressions. The full network of exchanges, established over the centuries between the banks of the Adriatic by means of the widest routes towards the Mediterranean, therefore produced intense links, testified to graphically by the numerous courses on nautical charts which intersect, identifying the main settlements localized in the coastal areas, made up alternately of small villages with small landing places or convenient ports, of military garrisons or strategic, fortified installations, mostly built or consolidated during the Venetian domination. With alternating occurrences, the two fronts, Italian and Dalmatian, were tied in to the Venetian Republic and used in the common battle against the Turks who, at that time, ruled in the Adriatic.