ROSACCIO, GIUSEPPE: VIEW OF ZADAR

Rosaccio did not omit to include in his travel-record book «Viaggio da Venetia a Constantinopoli per Mare, e per Terra, & insieme quello di Terra Santa», one of the most important seaboard fortifications on the eastern Adriatic coast – Zadar. As administrative seat of the Venetian Dalmatia, which Zadar was at the time the view was produced, it represented one of the key strategic points of the Republic of Venice in its struggle to reject the Turks from Dalmatia. The strategic importance of Zadar is also reflected in the view’s emphasis to represent the town exclusively as a fortress within rings of walls defending the town from the continent and from the sea.  The fortifications of Zadar from the Venetian period represent a classical example of fortification architecture with its line of fortifications which in its landward part comprised thick curtain walls and seven large bastions and in the part facing the sea less massive walls and three smaller bastions. In the town’s background the massive of the Velebit range is shown with shaded mole hills. Rosaccio used as its source an earlier view made, in 1571, by Božo Bonifačić for Comocio’s isolar.