FORT CROCETTA

 

 

In the area occupied by the fort there was, originally, a small convent of the Padri Agostiniani (1609) and the church of Santissimo Crocifisso. In 1747 the coenobium was completely surrounded by Genoese trenches.

Itīs probable that the English, in the first months of 1815, placed artillary in the antique religious complex. Around 1818 the Royal Army of the Genio Sardo began to completely demolish the building, and began the first phase of constructing Fort Crocetta: work continued until around 1826. This primitive fort had only one floor. The building was not finished because of the modifications to the project, which called for digging a deep foundation, and lifting the bastionated front. By doing this they obtained the insertion of an extra floor. This second phase initiated in 1827 and concluded around 1830.

In 1849, citizens and revolters captured by the Piemontese soldiers were locked inside. After it was abandoned by the military in 1914, the fort was used as a lodging many times until 1961. Today, some private citizens, which live inside the barracks, are working to stop access to vandals and others.

On the parapet of the barracks, one can note the splay of the embrasures and machine-gunners, which happened during the Second World War. This demolished nearly one and a half metres of the wall; the stump of the wall, wrongly exchanged for a Guelphic battlement, is, in reality, the only testimony to the original height of the parapet. The inside is composed of a courtyard from which various services took place.

A few years ago the fort was the object of a thesis. It spoke about the restructuring it, and that it should be used as a "Museum of Fortifications"; itīs sad that, even with the presence of this excellent project, no Company, nor the State, took it up. And so even this Fort is destined to fall to ruin.

 

 

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