Lyon et le nouvel art de la guerre
Julien GuinandLa génèse du système bastionné en Europe
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Abstract
In the early sixteenth century, Lyon was a key stronghold on the border of the kingdom of France with the duchy of Savoy. Nonetheless the city’s fortifications, dating back to the fourteenth century, were in dismal condition. When the guns of Charles VIII stirred the imagination of populations from Milan to Naples, it became time to modernize the city walls, but no works were undertaken in the first decade of the sixteenth century. When in 1512 imperial troops threatened to invade France, Louis XII ordered new works to fortify Lyon. These concentrated on the north side of the city, where a new wall was erected between the Rhône and Saône rivers, on the summit of the Saint-Sébastien hill. It was reinforced with a series of bulwarks (boulevards), at first constructed in timber and earth but later, in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, rebuilt in masonry, under the direction of several experienced captains and other fortification specialists, mostly Italians. It was the first city wall to be erected on the doorsteps of Italy that emerged from an architectural practice in full change, with defences that were characterised, on the one hand, by a traditional autonomy of the various organs and, on the other, by a desire to cover the ditches with flanking casemates. The French defeat at Pavia in 1525 caused the works in Lyon to accelerate, but at the same time the design of the bulwarks under construction was thoroughly revised under the supervision of Anchise of Bologna, ‘master of repairs and fortifications in Languedoc’. The northern enceinte was largely finished in the 1530s. Its exact trace at this stage remains unclear. It seems that its defences were certainly innovative and state-of-the-art, but did not yet constitute a fully developed bastioned front. In 1544, owing to another threat of invasion, new works were undertaken under the direction of the famous French engineer Jean de Renaud de Saint-Rémy, who at the time was in charge of the fortifications of Bourgogne and Bresse. These works continued in the following years with financial aids from the king and with occasional advice from Francesco Bernardino of Vimercati, an Italian engineer in royal service as overseer of all fortifications in Piedmont. Aside from some imperfections, the new works were completed in the early 1550s. The result is depicted in a plan attributed to Pietro Angelo Pelloia in 1555 and in an accurate perspective plan of Lyon of 1607. The most advanced part of the Lyon fortifications was the enceinte on the Saint-Sébastien hill, which now comprised a string of nine defensive organs. These were essentially of two different types, reflecting successive phases in the building process: first there was a pair of sharply pointed bastions whose faces (one of which containing a city gate) were not properly flanked from the adjacent organs; then there were obtuse bastions with orillons that alternated with smaller bastions with a flat front and which all neatly flanked each other. The one element still missing was a counterscarp in masonry; this was built only during the Thirty Years War, together with demi-lunes in front of the bastions. The Lyon fortifications aptly exemplify the genesis of the bastioned system in France, as they were part of a larger ensemble of places fortes planned by Francis I and Henri II along the south-east borders of the kingdom.
Key takeaways
- The French defeat at Pavia in 1525 caused the works in Lyon to accelerate, but at the same time the design of the bulwarks under construction was thoroughly revised under the supervision of Anchise of Bologna, 'master of repairs and fortifications in Languedoc'.
- En contrebas, au nord, un bastion est en cours de construction au bord de la Saône afin de défendre l'entrée de la ville par la route Au final, l'enceinte de la colline Saint Sébastien reste la plus aboutie des défenses de la ville.
- Archives municipales de Lyon, BB 143, f° 62 Archives Municipales de Lyon, BB 79, f° 287 R 63 Un pont de pierre sera seulement réalisé à partir de 1636 avec la réalisation des demi-lunes.
