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Model of a medieval Portuguese fortress with its historical documentation in the background. Image Credit: Book of Fotresses project team.
Model of a medieval Portuguese fortress with its historical documentation in the background. Image Credit: Book of Fotresses project team.

Book of Fortresses

Project Lead(s): Edward Triplett

2017present

The aim of the Book of Fortresses project is to spatially reconstruct an exceptional architectural source from early modern Portugal called the Livro das Fortalezas (Book of Fortresses). The book contains 120 perspective drawings and architectural plans of more than 55 fortresses and fortified towns along the border between Portugal and Spain. It also contains a brief but clear itinerary followed by the book ‘s author (a Portuguese Squire named Duarte de Armas) when he traveled to each site in 1509. The digital project takes a multi-scale approach to the book. At the architectural scale, the project team is constructing parametric 3D models of the fortifications according to Duarte de Armas’ measured plans and perspective drawings in order to better understand his visualizations. 3D “billboards” of d’Armas’ perspective drawings are also oriented to the landscape within a 3D GIS and in the Unity game engine. Finally, at the national/peninsula scale, Duarte de Armas’ itinerary is plotted with viewshed analyses from each site in order to analyze whether it is appropriate to refer to the string of fortresses as a “chain” or “borderline.” In January 2020, the Office of Digital Humanities at the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) awarded Ed Triplett and Phil Stern (Duke, Department of History) a level II grant to develop the methodologies implemented by the Book of Fortresses project into an applicable workflow for visualizing non-cartesian maps and views using a combination of GIS, CAD, and game engine software.

Current Collaborators

Daniel Castro
Brittany Forniotis
Hillman Han
Audrey Magnusen

Past Collaborators

Cyan DeVeaux (Trinity '20)
Rory Dierman
Cameron Esses
Stone Mathers (Trinity '20)

Related Projects

Sandcastle

Scholarship

Books & Book Chapters

  • Triplett, Edward. “Drawing Borders with Castles and Maps —Making Sense of the 16th Century Livro das Fortalezas.” in Genius Loci: Early Modern Architectural Practices and the Construction of Place. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020.

Presentations

  • DeVeaux, Cyan, Edward Triplett, and David Zielinski. “Immersive Chorography: Experiencing the Book of Fortresses through Virtual Reality.” Poster presented at the Research Computing Symposium, Duke University, Durham, NC, February 5, 2020.
  • Triplett, Edward. “The Book of Fortresses: An Early Modern Visualisation of a Historical Buffer-Zone.” Paper presented at Digital Matters in Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Duke University, Durham, NC, April 6-7, 2018.
  • Triplett, Edward. “Borders and Panoramas in Early Modern Portugal: Integrating Architectural and National-Scale Spatial Analyses with 3D GIS.” in “DH in 3D: Multidimensional Research and Education in the Digital Humanities.” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, January 2019.
  • Triplett, Edward. “Drawing Borders with Castles and Maps—Making Sense of the 16th Century Livro das Fortalezas.” Paper presented at The Spaces of Early Modern Architectural Production, Max-Planck-Institute für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2018.
  • Triplett, Edward. “Historical Mapping in Three Dimensions: Obstacles and Opportunities” in”Geographical History: From Maps as Documents to Maps as Method.” Panel presented and co-organized with Susan Gagliardi at the American Association of Geographers conference, Boston, MA, April 2017.
  • Triplett, Edward. “Maps and Views, Plans and Landscapes: The Capabilities of 3D GIS in Liberal Arts Teaching and Research.” Keynote Paper for “Fostering Humanistic Tools for Digital Mapping” ACM Faculty Career Advancement Program at St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, July 2019.