Alba Carolina fortress

Alba Iulia is situated in the heart of Romania and is the spiritual capital of the country. Alba Iulia is the site of the ancient Apulum, founded by the Romans in the 2nd century A.D., and destroyed by Tatars in 1241. From 1599 to 1601, Alba Iulia was the capital of the united principalities of Walachia, Transylvania and Moldavia. It was the site of the proclamation of Transylvania's unification with Romania (1 December 1918) and of the coronation of King Ferdinand in 1922.


The Alba Carolina fortress was built between 1714 and 1738 and it is considered to be the most representative baroque, Vauban-type star fortress in Romania and one of the largest of this kind in Eastern Europe.


The fortress was designed by the Italian architect Giovanni Morando Visconti, who worked under the supervision of the general Stefan de Steinville and was later completed under General Weiss. The work at the fortification of Alba Iulia has began on the 4th of November 1715, when the foundation of Carol bulwark, dedicated to the emperor Carol VI and situated on the Northern side was made. 20.000 serves built the walls. Between the 18th and 19th centuries the fortress served as the military headquarters of Transylvania and also as a general armament repository. It was once one of the most powerful citadels in southeastern Europe, and served in the line of defense meant to keep out Turkish invaders from Central Europe. The leaders of the peasants’ revolution of 1784-85 were jailed, tried and executed here. Later, in 1848, the citadel was attacked by Hungarian revolutionary forces led by general Bem, but did not fall into their hands. Naturally, at the dawn of the 20th century, the citadel became obsolete, as modern warfare made its appearance on the European scene.


The perimeter of the outside walls is about 12 km. The fortification has seven bastions or bulwarks (Eugene of Savoia, St. Stefan, The Trinity, St. Michael, St. Carol, St. Capistrano and St. Elisabeth) that make it into a star-shaped, Vauban-style fortress. The largest bulwark is the Trinity (116m on 132m). On the whole, the fortress stands out between the most important Baroque architectural ensemble in Romania and Europe.


The walls were made of bricks, quarry stones, or out of the Roman ruins, measuring 3 m at the base and 1.20 m at the top and being sustained by abutments. The fortress is outstanding both for its decorative elements and for the beauty of its gates, unique in European military architecture. The fortress has six gates, three towards the town and the other three towards the western training fields. The gates are richly adorned, decorated with statues and reliefs by sculptors like Johann König, Johann Vischer and Giuseppe Tencalla, and have been a model for the 18th century Transylvanian architecture. The gates are looked upon as extremely valuable samples of early and plastic figurative Baroque. Today, only three gates preserve the original look.

The defense walls of Sibiu (Part III)

The Haller Bastion (Corneliu Coposu Boulevard and Pompei Onofreiu Street), 1552-1553
The spade shaped building was initiated by the general Castaldo, at the time when Petrus Haller was the mayor of Sibiu. The architect was Alessandro Clippa and the masters were Peter Nürnberger and Georg Waahll. The building was finalized in 1553. The bastion is built in brick and filled with earth, its walls having a total length of 223 meters and the maximum height of the wall is of 9 meters. For a better defense, the walls were equipped with stone spacers installed at approximately 1 meter from its superior limit, meant to impede the installation of the assault ladders. The openings of the pill boxes for the cannons are preserved both towards the Thick Tower (two openings) and towards Manejului Street (three openings).


In 1771 a riding school was built on the bastion, and during the first decade of the 20th century the building of the nowadays Neurology Hospital was erected.

The Soldisch Bastion (Bastionului Street at the corner with Alba Iulia Road)
Built between 1622 and 1627 as a defense fortification of the Upper Town, it is from a chronological point of view the last of the city’s bastions. On its superior part it has a pronounced belt which was meant to impede the rising of the assault ladders. From the point of view of the dimension, the bastion is small compared to the Haller Bastion. Its shape is that of a half of club with the straight lines oriented towards Filosofilor Alley.


A beautiful coat of arms of the city is placed on a white marble plaque on the exterior side of the bastion. The Bastion wall preserves nowadays four cannon balls embedded in it. The Ruin Garden styled according to the tastes of those times by Baron Michael Brukenthal (1785), the nephew of the Transylvanian governor, Samuel von Brukenthal, also had a brook which crossed one of the long ago deallocated pill boxes of the Bastion.

The defense walls of Sibiu (Part II)

The curtain wall at no 2-8 Bastionului Street (up to the Soldisch Bastion)
Between the Soldisch Bastion and Mitropoliei Street, on Ioan Lupaş Street, there exists a defense wall built between 1357 and 1366 belonging to the third fortification precinct.

The curtain wall on Centumvirilor Street
Spreading between Odobescu Street and Tribunei Street, was erected between 1357-1366 and transformed in the 18th century.


The section is over 200 meters long, and it is located on a wave area between the Lower Town and the Upper Town. Seen from the inside the precinct, Centumvirilor Street has a convex profile, and Konrad Haas and Odobescu Streets seen from the foot of the wall have a concave profile, the two ranges uniting at the ends, which makes the elevation of the wall receive a lens shape with a maximum height of 10 meters in the middle section where the "Poschen" stairs were created meant to connect the two districts of the old town.

The defense walls of Sibiu (Part I)

The exterior defense wall
between the Haller Bastion and the fragments of the Cisnădie Gate Bastion.
The third fortification belt may be admired in all its splendor along the Coposu Boulevard. A green area with trees separates the sidewalk from the wall. The green area was first arranged in 1791 between the Haller Bastion and the Thick Tower, later prolonged till Cisnădiei Bastion and is known as the promenade.


At the extremity towards Unirii Square as well as near the Thick Tower, the wall is pierced by a semicircular arch which allows the access of the pedestrians. At the crossroad of Filarmonicii Street with Coposu Boulevard, a break was made into the wall in order to allow the access of vehicles. This is where the former Corpse Gate used to be situated, opened in the wall in 1554 during the plague epidemics. Across the street from the gate, where the new wing of the hospital is located nowadays, there existed a cemetery which functioned until the end of the 19th century.

The wall on Manejului Street, near the eastern side of Ursulinelor Monastery (1357-1366)
At the extremity towards the Ursulinelor Church, the wall forms two arcades which sustain a passage gallery towards the courtyard once named the courtyard of the monks. Nowadays this gallery makes the connection with Constituţiei Street. The Babers' Tower existed here once, nearby the Salt Gate. The fragment of wall along Manejului Street is represented by a series of semicircular arches which were meant to sustain the guard gallery.

The wall on Cetăţii Street, between Unirii Square and Carpenters' Tower (1357- 1366)


The fragment of the fortification walls situated between the Carpenters' Tower and the Potters' Tower escaped the "systematization" in the 19th century. Nowadays the wall preserved its aspect from the 15th century, when it was rebuilt in bricks and equipped towards the interior with ample arcades which support the guard path. This includes a wooden parapet and a roof sustained by wooden poles.
Across the Carpenters' Tower, towards the inner part, a sort of balcony appears, the tower being placed on the exterior of the wall, flanking it. The initial firing holes of the wall are adapted to arquebuses, the bulwarks meant for bows having been modified.