Renaissance Urban Planning: Ideal Cities, Fortifications and Grid Layouts
The Renaissance and the Revival of Classical Ideas
The Renaissance began in the 15th century, marking a period of profound cultural change. Thinkers questioned the social and political order of the time and, with the decline of the ancient Roman world in mind, began to take steps to recover the classical world. Observing Roman ruins and studying the characteristics of this ancient world, scholars of the 15th century gathered a large body of documents and treatises on classical art and architecture.
A work of great importance was the Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius, the Roman architect whose treatise had survived from antiquity. During the Renaissance many works of the classical world were rediscovered, and architects sought to rebuild cities according to the principles they found in these texts.
Vitruvian Principles for the Ideal City
Vitruvius offered important considerations for designing an ideal city, including the protection of the city and its inhabitants from the elements and from attack. He recommended that a city be built on a site protected from the winds, and that it be enclosed by strong walls. He also suggested a octagonal fortress surrounded by walls, with each side of the city protected against a particular type of wind. These ideas were elaborate and, taken together, were not put into practice for many years.
Alberti and Filarete
The Renaissance was a period of great intellectual activity. Leading writers and architects sought to recover the knowledge of Vitruvius. Leon Battista Alberti wrote his ten books on architecture, known as De re aedificatoria, which became a foundation of Renaissance building theory. Another author, Antonio Filarete, in 1465 presented a model of an ideal city with plans and detailed written explanations: Sforzinda, named in honor of Duke Francesco Sforza. It was a model city with a strict geometric order, laid out in the form of an eight-pointed star with a radial system of streets, and with symmetrically placed public buildings. The project also contained ordering provisions for rationalizing the urban organization of circulation, the placement of civic and commercial centers, and the relationship between the many functional aspects of the city.
Before the end of the Middle Ages, in the 14th century, the Franciscan friar Francesco di Giorgio, among others, had described several ideal cities. Another author, Antonio Sanchez Arval, gave an account of how he intended to decorate the city.
Palmanova and the Star Fortress
To achieve proportional harmony with the same architectural language, these efforts sought to tie together the importance of rulers, princes, nobles and the promotion of public service through monuments, frameworks, statues and an overall city design. Under these ideas, the city of Palmanova was built on the eastern frontier of the Venetian Republic, beginning in 1593. At this time the system of fortification changed to defensive forms.
The city of Palmanova was a nine-sided polygon, with a hexagonal central square from which six principal streets radiated, leading to three gates and three bastions. Six more bastions connected to streets that opened onto the square. Concentric rings of streets and additional walls completed the scheme.
Spanish Colonial Grid Cities
These principles were applied in the Spanish American colonies. Some 295 cities were founded following a grid layout (cuadrícula). The regular grid was always bound to the ordinances enacted by Philip II in 1573, known as the Laws of the Indies.
The Spanish colonial city was conceived with precision and had a geometric plan. Santo Domingo, the first such city in the Americas, served as a model, and several cities in the Caribbean and Central America, including Panama, followed the same typology. These cities corresponded to the same patterns, with squares, streets and blocks laid out in a grid adapted to each site. The Ordinances of 1573 always required that the plan be arranged in relation to the site chosen for the foundation.
The plan was divided into squares, streets and house lots, with the central square serving as the starting point. The streets and doors led to the principal plaza, and the layout was designed so that the city could grow in the same way as the population increased. The main square of these cities constituted the central heart of civic and representative life.