Abstract

Between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the six teenth, the changes in the military technology - mainly related to the spread of firearms - implied a re-elaboration of the fortification construction theories and, consequently, a practical experimentation aimed at the identification of architectural models capable to make the border areas safe and impregnable. Far from involving only a small circle of "men of arms", the debate about the "new art of the war" involved men whose formation cannot be traced back to a specific type. Clearly emerges a fact that, in this context, constitutes the starting point for the reflection that I intend to propose: the involvement and participation of ecclesiastics also as "technicians" for the design and implementation of defensive structures, were not a marginal phenomenon but rather an element that contributed to strengthening the "political-religion-military" trinomial, peculiar to the modern age. In support of these theses, I have chosen two religious figures, namely that of Bernardino de Escalante, belonging to the secular clergy, and of the friar "servita" Giovanni Vincenzo Casali, as an observation point to reflect on the narrow, probably inseparable, link among the components of the aforementioned trinomial, which assumes an even more significant value if the spectrum of investigation is restricted to the context of the Spanish crown between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries.