The Book of Fortresses is one of the most remarkable visual surveys of early sixteenth-century Portugal. Produced in 1509-1510 by Duarte de Armas at the initiative of King Manuel I, it records the castles and fortified settlements along the frontier with Castile. More than a military inventory, the manuscript transforms the borderlands into a measured landscape of walls, roads, rivers, villages, and royal authority.
A Manueline Instrument of Power
The manuscript belongs to the wider reforming world of Manueline government, when monarchy, administration, and image-making worked together to define the kingdom. Duarte de Armas travelled on horseback with a servant, visiting fifty-six frontier castles, as well as Barcelos and Sintra on his return to Lisbon. His mission was practical: to assess the condition of fortifications and identify where repairs were most needed.
Drawing the Frontier
The codex preserves both plans and panoramic views, combining technical observation with vivid immediacy. Towers, walls, barbicans, gates, roads, bridges, wells, and rivers are rendered with disciplined attention. Yet the drawings also breathe with daily life: women fetch water, shepherds guide flocks, ships move along the Minho, and Duarte himself appears repeatedly, arriving or departing with his attendant.
A Manuscript of Memory and Measurement
Its value lies in the union of cartography, architecture, and royal survey. Each image records not only a fortress, but a political geography: Portugal seen from its edges, guarded by stone, measured by travel, and marked by the royal flag. The Book of Fortresses remains a rare witness to a kingdom studying itself with the eye of both artist and engineer.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Book of Fortresses": Livro das Fortalezas: Fac-simile do MS 159 da Casa Forte do Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo facsimile edition, published by Edições Inapa, 1997
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