When further researching this, I found a news posting on the mobile website
The Spanish ramparts. It says, this website was created in 2014 (
Link),
three years before the "excavation" in 2017.
From what I understand when reading the text on this website, what we are supposed to see being "excavated" in the initial posting are below ground remnants of the spanish ramparts, giving us a blueprint of their former location. We're being told the
whole above ground "spanish ramparts" were demolished in 1860.
"The early sixteenth century saw the development of several new war techniques and arms. As a result, the late-medieval fortification around Antwerp was no longer deemed sufficient. Emperor Charles V ordered the Italian engineer Donato di Boni to build a wall around the city with bastions. The new Spanish ramparts were built in the period from 1542 until 1553 and comprised five monumental gates, eight sections of wall and nine bastions: pentagonal bulwarks which jutted out of the wall.
All the walls were built in brick and clad with white stone from Glabbeek. The
walls were ten metres high and had a
parapet that was maximum two metres high. At the time, the Spanish ramparts were considered one of the most modern defences and even today, they have special cultural-historical value. At the end of the sixteenth century the citadel of Antwerp was incorporated in the Spanish ramparts on the south side. The Duke of Alva built the citadel in 1567.
In the nineteenth century the Spanish ramparts were no longer useful. When the Brialmont city wall was built in 1850, the old ramparts prevented future development. As a result, the
decision was made to demolish them in 1860. Nothing was preserved above ground level but the complete blueprint was preserved below ground. When the Leien were rebuilt, the archaeologists were able to study the remnants of these imposing ramparts for the first time.", Source: Google Translate from Dutch, URL
Detail Spanish Ramparts
The following image embedded into this website is captioned with "The demolition of the ramparts in 1864" (the rightmost entry in the image gallery, direct
link), while no artist information is given. This looks like a painting or part of a painting, however I couldn't find any further information on this image using reverse image search, except those leading back to itself.
Comparing this with the other official document quoted above I find further hints on the dimension of the whole construction.
"The Spanish ramparts were built between 1542 and 1553 by order of Emperor Charles. The work starts ten days after the siege of the city by Gelderland troops led by Maarten van Rossum. Both the city residents and the many foreign businessmen no longer felt protected by the outdated medieval city wall and demanded measures. Antwerp was now involved in the war strategy that Charles V introduced in his empire with the bastioned system. He commissioned the plan that the Italian engineer Donato di Boni had designed for the city in 1540. This design consisted of an
almost five km long wall with four monumental city gates with access bridges, nine bastions, eight fronts (straight sections of the city wall), a wet moat and a masonry outer moat border. The gates in northern Italian Renaissance style were majestic. Fluted Doric columns, lions' heads, friezes and pediments appeared in the finish of the facade. The bastions were built according to the old Italian system, with long faces (fronts), short withdrawn flanks with low gun platforms accessible via posterns (masonry passages) and oreillons (ear or round transition) between face and flank. The bastion corners were given a pyramidal finish at the height of the moat and just above the foundation, decorated with a sphere at the top. Natural stone was used for the outer cladding or the facing.
Another novelty was the
large earth wall behind the city wall and the bastions. This was accessible from the inside via earthen slopes and had a
width of 34 meters. Only the canal side of the rampart was provided with a brick massif with white natural stone facing.
The decision to build a new bastioned rampart for the city of Antwerp led to an exceptional architectural achievement with social implications for the inhabitants. The entire medieval city wall was demolished for this purpose, as were all the buildings at the foot of the new ramparts.
The edict of Mary of Hungary of August 16, 1542 made a zone 'non aedificandi' (building-free zone) of 500 feet on the outside of the ramparts4. The following provisions applied here:
• all houses, buildings and trees must be demolished within 500 feet of the fortresses,
• in the city no new building may be erected within the zone of 100 feet from the rampart,
• bricklayers and carpenters are obliged to come and work (for a reasonable salary),
• no one is allowed to work on another building without permission,
• You may remove as much soil as necessary from places and courts close to the fortresses, with as little damage as possible to the owners.
Bastion Huidevetterstoren was built between 1551 and 1552 as the last stronghold of the ramparts. It defended the city between Keizerspoort and Kipdorppoort. The name referred to the nearby Huidevetterstoren from the fourteenth century, one of the few medieval towers that has been preserved in the new fortification.", Source: Google Translate from Dutch, De Spaanse Omwalling Bastion Huidevetterstoren, Rapporten van het Stedelijk informatiecentrum archeologie & monumentenzorg (SIAM), 17, page 4, kindly linked in
AlgulSiento's posting above
The architect
Donato de Boni di Pellizuoli, who Jinxy identified above, was educated by Michele Sanmicheli (
Wikipedia).
Michele Sanmicheli (also spelled
Sanmmicheli,
Sanmichele or
Sammichele) (1484–1559), was a
Venetian architect and urban planner of
Mannerist-style, among the greatest of his era. A tireless worker, he was in charge of designing buildings and religious buildings of great value. (
Wikipedia)
The contemporaries of di Pellizuoli didn't seem to have a very good opinion about him:
After negative inspection reports from Giovanni Maria Olgiati and
Sebastiaan van Noyen , De Boni received no new orders from 1553 onwards. (
Wikipedia)
"Negative inspections" leading to absence of orders is not exactly what I expected to read about this modern day "Hemiunu" planning and building such a massive structure as these "spanish rampants".
Looking at the works attributed to Sanmicheli, Olgiati and van Noyen, I can't see any connection between these styles and the look of the "excavated" "spanish rampants".
Other buildings, for example the "Bourse of Antwerp" (actually the first version of it, gothic style, 1531, burnt down in 1583, does look much more like the styles of these guys. To compare, you can find images of the different Handelsbeurs versions in the
dutch Wikipedia article).
The catacombs of Antwerp below instead look very similar to the "excavated" "spanish rampants", red brick and white cladding (Image taken from
Tourist Website).
I hope I am not overstretching it with referencing the following paintings by
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (both images from
Wikipedia).
These paintings are thought to be made in 1563. The artist was member of the
Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp. They are thought to be showing the "Tower of Babel", red bricks on the inside, white cladding on the outside.
The following points I can't understand:
- Why would one of the greatest established artists of this time, who could well have witnessed the construction of the "spanish rampants" (if official story was true), use the building style of a then contemporary military fortification as the inspiration for his paintings of a biblical myth?
- How can a structure like this 5 km long x 10 m high (or is it 10 m "excavated" foundations and 10 m walls + 2 m parapet above ground = 22 m high half buried construction) "spanish rampants" with all these gates etc. be built in eleven years?
I am a complete amateur with no knowledge about history, architecture or art. I think what might have happened is that people found these existing structures, which we're told today are these "spanish rampants" and used them to settle. At one point in their economic growth these older structures get used, and at one point in their history, as if adorning themselves with borrowed plumes, the older structures become attributed as one of your own achievements.
Also the height of the structure keeps puzzling me. The exavations go quite deep visually. If above ground structures were present, it would be more than the 10 m height which are reported in the sources.
I found another peculiar text in Wikipedia, about one of the main gates of the "spanish rampants", which adds to the confusion:
"In the 19th century (1864-1865) the Kipdorppoort and the ramparts were demolished to make way for the Antwerp
boulevard .
Only the cobblestones and the top one and a half meters of the natural stone facing were dismantled. The Kipdorp Gate disappeared completely. The city moat was filled in with the demolition material and the lower walls disappeared under the slates." (Google Translate from dutch,
Wikipedia page on the "Kipdorp Bridge")
To me it boils down to this single question: why are the "spanish rampants" so deep underground nowadays they have to be "excavated", when the official sources are true? It's not just the question who really built it and when, but also the fact they are still there and how they are looking now, is asking additional questions on top of that for what really happened.
