Exploring the Book of Fortresses

Abstract

Duarte de Armas’ Livro das fortalezas or Book of Fortresses illustrates 55 border fortresses in over 180 meticulous measured and annotated renderings. The book is even more impressive given that de Armas completed his on-site survey in a single year (1509) and finished annotating the book the following year. The book’s drawings, alluring in their combination of finite time and enormous space, are difficult to link together at an intra-site or inter-site scale. Consequently, while mapping the 55 border fortresses in the book provides a greater apprehension of a historical, liminal space, this alone does not solve the greater problem of reconstructing de Armas’ methods for rendering place on the Portuguese-Castilian border, nor does it acknowledge the historical moment in which it was produced. This article reconstructs the world of the Book of Fortresses through a novel, digital approach that acknowledges Duarte de Armas’ malleable sense of space rather than ‘rectifying’ his work to match modern geography.