Zuidkasteel
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The Zuidkasteel was a fortification built by the Spanish occupation of Antwerp in the 16th century. Finished in 1567, its demolition was started in 1874 to make room for Antwerpen Zuid (Antwerp South) and the Zuiderdokken.
- ... in 1567, when Alva came to the Netherlands, he brought with him a noted engineer, Paciotto d'Urbino, who had already built citadels at Turin and Cambrai, and was at once sent to build one at Antwerp. Two thousand workmen were employed upon it daily, and it was finished in little more than a year, at a great cost. It was reckoned the masterpiece of the age, and Strada says that Paciotto " got himself a great name by it, being from thence called the inventor of modern fortification." --Vauban, Montalembert, Carnot; Engineer studies (1887)
Background
The religious revolution of the Reformation erupted in violent riots in August 1566, as in other parts of the Low Countries. The regent Margaret, Duchess of Parma, was swept aside when Philip II sent the Duke of Alba at the head of an army the following summer. When the Eighty Years' War broke out in 1572, commercial trading between Antwerp and the Spanish port of Bilbao collapsed and became impossible. On 4 November 1576, Spanish soldiers plundered the city. During the Spanish Fury 6,000 citizens were massacred, 800 houses were burnt down, and over 2 million sterling of damage was done.
Antwerp became the capital of the Dutch revolt. In 1585, Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, captured it after a long siege and as part of the terms of surrender its Protestant citizens were given two years to settle their affairs before quitting the city. Most went to the United Provinces in the north, starting the Dutch Golden Age. Antwerp's banking was controlled for a generation by Genoa, and Amsterdam became the new trading centre.
See also
