Bulwark

Robust defense against the inrush of the forces of destruction; work created with the contribution of many; exploitation of natural resources which can lead to squandering them or to protect the ecosystem from which they arise. The word has a clear, if ancient, military flavor. Then it slowly filtered to other fields, and today it is used above all in a broad sense, for example in describing the reality of spiritual and moral life, and also in the languages of civil life. If it found its great diffusion in the war field, the bulwark has an origin prior to this application and at its root it comes, we could say today, from civil protection.

What we know is a work of architecture typical of the Renaissance centuries, when it was one of the key points of the defensive walls of cities and strongholds. It had to be strong enough to withstand the cannon fire of enemy artillery. Its specific feature was the wooden frame. It was precisely that type of construction, grandiose for the time, which, well before military application, the Germanic populations of the North Sea coasts knew as bolwerk, i.e. "wooden works" (translated into French as boulevard which soon came to indicate the internal fortification wall, and then again the avenues that took its place). With these structures they managed to defend the emerged lands from the threat of floods and challenged the power of the sea.

Fabio Arduini

NP Maggio 2023