Carloforte, Fort San Vittorio

From the tower, which houses the Torre di San Vittorio multimedia museum, you can enjoy an excellent view with the possibility of seeing the towers of Portoscuso, Calasetta and Cala Domestica.
Carloforte, refounded by the will of the Savoy monarchy in 1738, has a typical Ligurian appearance. The streets are narrow and ridden by archivolts like the Genoese “carugi”. The houses, now in bright colors, maintain the original white-lime paint on the corners of the ramps and sidewalks. They have two floors and are equipped with “galaie” (balconies): this is a typical eighteenth-nineteenth-century domestic architecture.
The centerpiece of the urban layout of the fishing village is the parish church of San Carlo Borromeo, whose façade integrates with the adjacent buildings, creates spatial homogeneity with the square in front and meets the need for maximum scenographic effect in relation to the urban and environmental context, to which the Baroque architects tended. The perimeter lines of the buildings draw the backdrops of urban theater, shaping voids through delicate harmonies and precise proportional balances played on the illusion and lightness of the interpenetration between interior and exterior.
A document from the Cagliari State Archives says that in 1738 the military engineer Augusto Della Vallea, who also held the position of Royal Commissioner, was working at that time on the new urban structure.
As for the defensive systems built to protect the town, the report sent by the Commissioner to the viceroy on 29 August of the same year shows that the fortifications were already well under way and extended “over the entire circumference of the town” to be built. Their layout covered all that part of land known today as the “castle” and was interspersed with bastions called San Carlo, Rivarolo, San Lorenzo, San Maurizio, Beato Amedeo and San Vittorio.
Based on the “Conventions” of 1737, in addition to the Castle (named after Carlo Emanuele III), for the defense of Carloforte, a tower should have also been built at the entrance of the port, precisely in the town called “Spalmatore di Dentro” or “Spalmadoreddu”.
A report from the time entitled “Memoria Torre nel Spalmatore” tells of the solemn ceremony of blessing and laying of the foundation stone that took place on 12 March 1768. In homage to Vittorio Amedeo III king of Sardinia, the tower was called Forte San Vittorio. The expenses for the equipment of the artillery were borne by the Real Cassa, as was already the case for Fort Carlo Emanuele III and as arranged with “Regio Viglietto” of 4 June 1772.
The fortress-tower is currently used by the Institute of Astronomy of the University of Cagliari as an Observatory and consists of a central tower with three smaller towers. The internal structure consists of a sort of annular barrel vaulted corridor that runs all around the central environment surmounted by a small dome. At the points of overlap between the central structure and the leaning towers, the annular corridor is amplified to form three quadrangular rooms illuminated by a looped outside.

Bibliography
G. Vallebona, Carloforte. History of a colonization (1738-1810), Carloforte, 1962;
M. Cabras, “The works of De Vincenti and the first Piedmontese military engineers in Sardinia in the period 1720-1745", in Proceedings of the XIII Congress on the History of Architecture, Sardinia, Rome, 1966; T. Kirova-D. Fiorino, The religious architecture of the Baroque in Sardinia, Cagliari, 2002.