The "Guglielmo Pepe" Barracks is located on the Lido of Venice, formerly Palazzo dei Soldati or General District at the time of the Serenissima, and for the Lagoons, as well as a coveted seat of monumental beauty, a reminder of a glorious military past.
The peculiarity of some truly significant aspects of this past, not lacking in charm, constitutes however, beyond the wear and tear of the centuries, a living and noble bond of ideal value between the ancient and the very new, between the Fanti da Mar and the Lagunari .
The construction of the Palazzo dei Soldati, which dates back to 1591, was completed in five years and definitively solved the problem of settlements that the military function of the Lido, a natural bulwark of Venice against offenses from the sea, had proposed since 1202 when the old Doge Enrico Dando lo (1107-1205) had about forty thousand Crusaders stop in this place, waiting to set sail for the Holy Land (fourth crusade commissioned by Pope Innocent III in 1202), building large "board huts" for soldiers in San Nicolò "stables" for horses.
A similar solution, based on fast-moving huts, was also adopted during the Chioggia war (1378-79) when, threatened by the Genoese, the Serenissima entrusted Vettor Pisani with the defense of the city, who had two sturdy wooden towers built on the banks of the entrance to the Port of Lido by connecting them with a system of chains and small boats capable of blocking navigation. At the same time, Pisani ordered a large pit with a stone "rampara" to be dug through the Lido to protect the Abbey of San Nicolò and behind it he had large troop huts erected. This defensive system was called "il serraglio" and even today the place where the "G. Pepe" barracks is located is indicated with this name.
Later, in the first half of the sixteenth century, due to the Turkish threat, the old tower, called "Castel Vecchio" and located in front of Sant'Andrea, was completely rebuilt and enlarged so that from the works it turned out to be a fortification formed by a body crenellated central with a small tower in the center and two towers with escarpments and terraces on the sides.
The tower of the right, raising a very tall antenna with a lantern in the center, served as a lighthouse. Furthermore, still in those years, a 300-foot crossbar was built (going from the sea to the lagoon and consisting of a central bastion and two side embankments grounded and equipped with mumps) and a broken curtain along the borders with the sea . In this way even Venice could boast, within its lagoon limits, a classic, albeit limited, example of the bastion front.
Today the barracks is abandoned and is in a state of degradation.
Barracks Guglielmo Pepe
Address: Riviera S. Nicolò
Phone:
Site:
http://www.associazionelagunari.it/caserma_pepe.htmLocation inserted by
Paola Bonometti