Leonardo Torriani

The Canary Islands under the Sign of Cancer
Map of the Canary Islands by Leonardo Torriani

Leonardo Torriani , also Leonardo Turriano (* around 1560 in Cremona , † 1628 in Lisbon ), was an Italian fortress builder who worked mainly in Spain and Portugal. His "Descrittione et historia del regno de l'isole Canarie" is considered to be an important work for understanding the history of the Canary Islands .

family

Leonardo Torriani came from an old family established in Lombardy. His father was Bernhardo Torriani. An at least distant relationship with the watchmaker, mechanic and machine builder Juanelo Turriano is likely, but cannot be proven.

Leonardo Torriani was married to María Manoel. With her he had the sons, Diego Turriano, who, like his father, held the post of chief engineer in the Kingdom of Portugal from 1630 , and João, Benedictine brother , teacher of mathematics at the University of Coimbra and a respected architect. The daughters Joanna and Catharina entered monasteries as nuns under the royal patronage.

Life

As a Renaissance man, Torriani received an interdisciplinary education. Geometry, drawing, mathematics, physics, medicine, history, philosophy, music, law, astrology and astronomy were felt to be necessary for the training of an architect. More detailed information about the location of his studies is not known.

In 1582 he worked at the court of Emperor Rudolf II in Prague . From there he traveled to Madrid where he was appointed engineer on the island of La Palma by King Philip II . From August 1484 to the summer of 1586 he was active on La Palma. There he primarily took care of facilities to protect the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma . After a stay at the king's court, he returned to the Canary Islands in August 1587. He had the task of inspecting all the defenses there and developing suggestions on how to complete the defense system of the archipelago. He began his investigations on the island of La Palma, which he left at the end of 1487. He spent six months in Tenerife . In June 1588 he came to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria . Here he spent the next five years. There he was a respected member of the local educational elite, which also included a number of historically interested writers whose works are cited in his work. In this environment he summarized his knowledge and impressions gained on the islands in a report, which in Spanish-language literature is usually briefly referred to as "Descripción de las Canarias" or "Descrittione".

On his return to Spain, he was tasked with reviewing the defenses of Mazalquivir in North Africa, Cartagena and other cities in Spain and Portugal. In 1596 he went to Portugal to continue work on the fortification of Viana . From this time on, Torriani's life shifted to Portugal, with the exception of brief interruptions due to visits to Galicia , where he was supposed to assess the fortifications of El Ferrol and the walls of La Coruña . He made plans to solve the fundamental problems of the defense of Lisbon, both the nearby mountains and, above all, in relation to the mouth of the Tagus .

After the death of Filippo Terzi , Torriani was appointed general architect and chief engineer of the Kingdom of Portugal in 1598. Together with Baltasar Alvares, he leads the work on the church of the monastery of São Vicente da Fora . In addition, he was involved in reports on Lisbon's water supply and in important work on Lisbon's civil architecture. In 1623 he was in Andalusia to investigate the possibility of building a canal between the Guadalquivir and the Guadalete .

Leonardo Torriani died in Lisbon in 1628 at the age of 69.

Works

Various reports and other documents have survived from Leonardo Torriani. Most of them are in the Archivo General de Simancas . A copy of the work entitled “Alla Maesta del Re Catolico, descrittione et historia del regno de l'isole Canarie gia dette le Fortvnate con il parere delle loro fortificationi Di Leonardo Torriani cremonese” is kept in the library of the University of Coimbra. The work, usually briefly known in Spanish-language literature as “Descripción de las Canarias”, was probably made by Torriani in the last months of his stay in the Canary Islands. It is a systematic compilation and revision of drafts and reports that he had sent to the royal court during his time on the islands. The copy known today went to the São Bento Monastery after the death of his son, along with other books, and from there to the University of Coimbra . The Austrian researcher Dominik Josef Wölfel published parts of the original Italian-language text with a German translation for the first time in Leipzig in 1940 . Interest in the subject was quite low in Germany at the time of World War II. In Spain and the Canary Islands there have been very few copies of the publication of the original Italian text with a German translation. A basis of today's research is the translation of the work into the Castilian language by Alejandro Cioranescu , published in 1959 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Alejandro Cioranescu: Introducción . Traducción del Italiano, con Introducción y Notas, por Alejandro Cioranescu. In: Alejandro Cioranescu (ed.): Descripción e historia del reino de las Islas Canarias: antes Afortunadas, con el parecer de su fortificaciones (=  Clásicos canarios . No. 2 ). Goya Ediciones, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1959, pp. XLII (Spanish, [1] [accessed November 15, 2016]).
2. ↑ Alejandro Cioranescu: Introducción . Traducción del Italiano, con Introducción y Notas, por Alejandro Cioranescu. In: Alejandro Cioranescu (ed.): Descripción e historia del reino de las Islas Canarias: antes Afortunadas, con el parecer de su fortificaciones (=  Clásicos canarios . No. 2 ). Goya Ediciones, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1959, pp. XVI (Spanish, [2] [accessed November 15, 2016]).
3. ↑ Fernando Gabriel Martín Rodríguez: La primera imagen de Canarias / Los dibujos de Leonardo Torriani . Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Canarias (COAC), Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1986, ISBN 84-600-4660-5 , p. 28 (Spanish, [3] [accessed December 13, 2017]).
4. ↑ Fernando Gabriel Martín Rodríguez: La primera imagen de Canarias / Los dibujos de Leonardo Torriani . Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Canarias (COAC), Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1986, ISBN 84-600-4660-5 , p. 19 (Spanish, [4] [accessed December 13, 2017]).
5. ↑ Fernando Gabriel Martín Rodríguez: La primera imagen de Canarias / Los dibujos de Leonardo Torriani . Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Canarias (COAC), Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1986, ISBN 84-600-4660-5 , p. 22 (Spanish, [5] [accessed December 13, 2017]).
6. ↑ Alejandro Cioranescu: Introducción . Traducción del Italiano, con Introducción y Notas, por Alejandro Cioranescu. In: Alejandro Cioranescu (ed.): Descripción e historia del reino de las Islas Canarias: antes Afortunadas, con el parecer de su fortificaciones (=  Clásicos canarios . No. 2 ). Goya Ediciones, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1959, pp. XVII ff (Spanish, [6] [accessed November 15, 2016]).
7. ↑ Fernando Gabriel Martín Rodríguez: La primera imagen de Canarias / Los dibujos de Leonardo Torriani . Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Canarias (COAC), Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1986, ISBN 84-600-4660-5 , p. 27 (Spanish, [7] [accessed December 13, 2017]).
8. ↑ Alejandro Cioranescu: Introducción . Traducción del Italiano, con Introducción y Notas, por Alejandro Cioranescu. In: Alejandro Cioranescu (ed.): Descripción e historia del reino de las Islas Canarias: antes Afortunadas, con el parecer de su fortificaciones (=  Clásicos canarios . No. 2 ). Goya Ediciones, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1959, pp. XXII (Spanish, [8] [accessed November 15, 2016]).
9. ↑ Fernando Gabriel Martín Rodríguez: La primera imagen de Canarias / Los dibujos de Leonardo Torriani . Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Canarias (COAC), Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1986, ISBN 84-600-4660-5 , p. 28 (Spanish, [9] [accessed December 13, 2017]).
10. ↑ Leonardo Torriani: The Canary Islands and their native inhabitants . An unknown illuminated manuscript from 1590. In the original Italian text and in German translation as well as with ethnographic, historical-geographical, linguistic and archaeological contributions. In: Dominik Josef Wölfel (Ed.): Sources and research on the history of geography and ethnology . tape 6 . KF Koehler, Leipzig 1940.
11. ↑ Carmen Díaz Alayón: Dominik Josef Wölfel and his Canarian studies . In: Almogaren . No. 20 , 1989, ISSN  1695-2669 , pp. 14 ( [10] [PDF; accessed June 1, 2019]).
12. ↑ Leonardo Torriani: Descripción e historia del reino de las Islas Canarias: antes Afortunadas, con el parecer de su fortificaciones . Traducción del Italiano, con Introducción y Notas, por Alejandro Cioranescu. Ed .: Alejandro Cioranescu (=  Clásicos canarios . No. 2 ). Goya Ediciones, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1959 (Spanish).

literature

• Alejandro Cioranescu: Introducción . Traducción del Italiano, con Introducción y Notas, por Alejandro Cioranescu. In: Alejandro Cioranescu (ed.): Descripción e historia del reino de las Islas Canarias: antes Afortunadas, con el parecer de su fortificaciones (=  Clásicos canarios . No. 2 ). Goya Ediciones, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1959 (Spanish, [11] [accessed November 15, 2016]).
• Fernando Gabriel Martín Rodríguez: La primera imagen de Canarias / Los dibujos de Leonardo Torriani . Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Canarias (COAC), Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1986, ISBN 84-600-4660-5 (Spanish, [12] [accessed December 13, 2017]).

Web links

Commons : Leonardo Torriani  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Facsimile of the "descrittione et historia"