Re: Castles in the 9-rosette diagram...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

> (7) Causeway between N and NW rosettes. This contains - albeit extremely 
> faintly - a *most* interesting structure! Having examined Filarete's 
> Sforzinda in some depth, I was struck by the similarity between this tower 
> and Filarate's drawings of extended (and elaborate) multi-stage towers.
>
> The Bramante tower (in Vigevano, home of a Castello Sforzesco and the 
> Sforza court, and the place that Duke Ludovico Il Moro planned to 
> restructure), completed at the end of the fifteenth century, is one 
> example of this "filaretiana" multi-layered style of architecture, but my 
> guess ithat these are quite rare - so should also be easy to track down.

Also note that "Filarete's Tower" (in Milan) is a 19th Century 
reconstruction of Filarete's original (multi-layered) tower, which was 
destroyed in 1521. The rebuilding was based on engravings on the wall of 
Chiaravalle Abbey, near Milan. This tower is also a strong candidate for 
the source of the structure on the N-NW causeway - however, the quality of 
the Copyflo is so poor that it's almost embarrassing to ask architectural 
historians for their opinion on it. :-/

BTW: the reason Filarete didn't end up building much is that Lombardy in 
general (and Milan in particular) was where gothic kept on going (even up 
to and overlapping with the gothic revival) - so Filarete needed to get 
wealthy patrons (like the Sforza) to update their mindset to accommodate 
his more modern style. But this didn't really happen to any great degree.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....