Il Castello di Ischia nel disegno dell’ingegnere regio Benvenuto Tortelli. Architettura e ingegneria al servizio delle difese del Regno di Napoli alla fine del Cinquecento

A drawing preserved in the National Library of Naples allows us to analyze the Castle of Ischia in a drawing by Benvenuto Tortelli, datable in the last years of the sixteenth century. The manuscript is of great importance for a monument ignored by historiography that, not only for museum uses but also for commercial ones, deserves greater interest from the scientific community. The drawing was accomplished by Tortelli, royal engineer, who was in charge of detecting the castle that needed a renovation after the damages caused by corsair attacks. The iconographic document is of remarkable interest because it shows the fortified tower, the external walls and the internal walls, the defensive architectures but also the other buildings which rise up on the islet as the cathedral, the bishop’s palace, churches, chapels, storages, routes and other structures not always recognizable. Moreover is possible to suppose the origin of the castle and its development between Angevin and Aragonese period. The drawing shows the completeness of the fortress city on the islet, where architectures harmonize with the orography of the territory, already a natural defence, and the modern military technics.