A complex ‘offensive machine’: the bastion of Santa Trinita in the Prato city walls

The reconstruction of transformations that have occurred over time to tangible cultural heritage is a conditio sine qua non for any preservation intervention. Each subsequent phase, in fact, overlays the previous one like a layer, producing new configurations and enabling new uses, which must be documented beforehand. The research on the Santa Trinita bastion, one of the seven strongholds introduced in the second half of the 16th century within Prato's second city wall, used from the late 19th century to today as a pleasure garden, has allowed for a deeper understanding and depiction of its evolution from its construction to the present day. Furthermore, morphometric documentation, supported by historical research, has made it possible to analyze the functioning of this complex ‘offensive machine’ and compare it with the formulations advanced by the treatises of the time, including Giovanni Battista Belluzzi, to whom the design of the second plan of Prato's fortifications (1551) is attributed.