5184 x 3456 px | 43,9 x 29,3 cm | 17,3 x 11,5 inches | 300dpi
Data acquisizione:
18 marzo 2007
Ubicazione:
Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy
Altre informazioni:
Detail of the main city gate at Elephant's Tower in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. The tower is naturally illuminated over a blue sky. The Elephant's tower owes its name to the marble statue of an elephant, placed 10 m high to the left of the entrance. The animal perhaps symbolically represents the tower's solidity. Beginning in 1217, the Pisans settled in Cagliari concentrating themselves on the hill on which the neighbourhood of Castello is presently situated. The stronghold was fortified with the construction of towers and walls. This fortification's two most impressive towers remain today: the St. Pancras' tower on the north side of the castle and the Elephant's tower on its west side. These represent one of Italy's best examples of medieval military architecture. According to the inscriptions found on the two entrances, the "le due torri" were built by the architect Giovanni Capula in 1305 (St. Pancras) and in 1307 (Elephant). They were built on an "L" plan with one open side and calcareous blocks and reach a height of about 30 meters. Their interior has four wooden suspended ceilings that were added during their nineteenth-Century restoration. Originally, the two towers served as lookout points over the sea and towards the island's interior. Beginning with the Spanish domination and up until the first half of the nineteenth-Century, they served as prisons and torture rooms. Capital punishment was carried out in the little square close to the Elephant's tower.
