The Bulwark of Santa Catalina

Santa Catalina, just like the rest of the Marine Wall, was characterized by a long construction process in which the damage from storms and reconstruction were a constant. Based on the project by Bautista Antonelli, it was finally built by […]

Santa Catalina, just like the rest of the Marine Wall, was characterized by a long construction process in which the damage from storms and reconstruction were a constant. Based on the project by Bautista Antonelli, it was finally built by Cristóbal de Roda around 1625, modifying the initial plan by facing the Bulwarks of Santa Catalina and San Lucas in the direction of La Boquilla to include some fertile lands with numerous reservoirs.

The somewhat obsolete Italian ideas on bulwarks applied by Roda were not appreciated by the governor Francisco de Murga, also an engineer, who preferred the new proposals emanating from Flanders. Murga would supervise the construction between 1631 and its conclusion in 1638, extending the fortress with trenches and ravelins. Santa Catalina, with an irregular base, had an ample flat top, access ramp, covered path, sentry-boxes, cisterns and a row of stones jutting out between the rampart and the base of the parapet.

The sea, and especially the explosions caused by the Baron De Pointis in 1697, made its reconstruction necessary in the XVIII century. Juan de Herrera y Sotomayor in 1719 eliminated the lower fortified areas, repaired the cisterns and relocated the existing entrance, transferring it to its current location next to San Lucas. Besides, he initiated the construction of the breakwater to protect the bulwark from the movements of the sea; work that Antonio de Arévalo would improve at the end of the century. This brigadier engineer complements the defense of Cruz Grande Avenue adding to Santa Catalina the El Cabrero ravelin, with moats and a covered path, that is no longer in existence, having been demolished at the end of the XIX century.