The historical strong relationship between the eastern coast of Spain and southern part of Italian Peninsula has been a common issue over different civilizations from Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans up to the most recent modern kingdoms. Considering this set of connections based on trade routes and territorial bilateral interests, the western shores of Mare Nostrum have been key-points of a dense network of military and economical strategies. The dynamics of extensive territorial control have left interesting examples of costal watchtowers both in the Sorrento Peninsula, near Naples (Italy) and in the East coast of Valencia (Spain). The process of towers construction begins at early stages of Middle Age and, from the 16th century it runs up into a systemic control of the coastline, thanks to the reuse of obsolete fortified elements and new building-site procedures. In the paper, the authors aim at highlighting the territorial relationships among a number of towers built during the 16th century, as well as they propose a comparison of their construction techniques in order to gain an historical comparative and a contextual understanding of these fortified systems.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/FORTMED2015.2015.1689