Built 1563-1564 Designated as world heritage site 1991 | Reference no. PA00099279 | |
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Location Saint-Florent, Haute-Corse Architect Giovan Giacomo Paleari Fratino | ||
The Tour de Mortella (Corsican: Torra di Mortella) is a ruined Genoese tower on the French island of Corsica, located on the coast near Punta Mortella (Myrtle Point) in the commune of Saint-Florent, Haute-Corse. It was a progenitor of the numerous Martello towers the British built in the 19th century throughout their empire.
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History
The Italian architect Giovan Giacomo Paleari Fratino designed the Tour de Mortella and Colonel Giorgio Doria directed the construction between 1563 and 1564. It was one of a series of coastal defences constructed by the Republic of Genoa between 1530 and 1620 to stem attacks by Barbary pirates.
On 7 February 1794, two British warships, HMS Fortitude (74 guns) and HMS Juno (32 guns), unsuccessfully attacked the tower at Mortella Point; the tower eventually fell to land-based forces under Major-General David Dundas and Lieutenant-General John Moore after two days of heavy fighting.
Late in the previous year, the tower's French defenders had abandoned the tower after HMS Lowestoffe (32 guns) had fired two broadsides at it. Then the French were easily able to dislodge the garrison of Corsican patriots that had replaced them. Still, the British were impressed by the effectiveness of the tower when properly supplied and defended and copied the design. However, they misspelled the name as "Martello" rather than "Mortella". When the British withdrew from Corsica in 1796, they blew up the tower, leaving it in an unusable state.
Current status
The ruined tower was listed as one of the official Historical Monuments of France in 1991. The database incorrectly gives the date of construction as 1553-1554. This earlier date is when Spanish and Genoese troops led by Admiral Andrea Doria besieged the French forces occupying the port of Saint-Florent after the Franco-Turkish invasion of the island.
Since 1980 the French government agency the Conservatoire du littoral has owned and maintained the site. The Conservatoire plans to purchase 6,663 hectares (16,460 acres) of the surrounding coastline and as of 2017 had acquired 5,935 hectares (14,670 acres).