Tower of the Barco (Torrione del Barco)

The Torrione del Barco and the no longer extant tower at Punta della Montagnola, closed off the northern front of the defensive perimeter of the city of Ferrara, constituting two of the most strategic outposts of the city walls placed to protect the vast urban expansion promoted by Ercole I d’Este at the end of the 15th century.

Located at the north-western corner of Ferrara’s walls, the Torrione del Barco is part of that delicate process of updating the fortification art that between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries attempted to dampen the destructive potential of firearms through a radical rethinking of architectural forms. The structure was probably designed by the engineer and architect Biagio Rossetti, who, with the help of the furnace worker Alessandro Biondi, supervised the construction of the circuit of fortifications built between 1493 and 1506 to protect the so-called “Addizione Erculea”.