PROCEEDINGS of the International Conference on Fortifications of the Mediterranean Coast FORTMED 2026. Vol. 23

Fortifications constitute one of the most complex and stratified expressions of the built heritage, in which technical knowledge, political structures, territorial strategies and cultural representations are closely intertwined. Their understanding necessarily rests on an interdisciplinary approach, capable of bringing into dialogue historical, architectural, engineering, archaeological and landscape perspectives. Within this framework, the historiographical reflection of Marc Bloch appears particularly pertinent and fruitful, as it highlights how historical knowledge is grounded in the crossing of perspectives and in the capacity to interrogate the traces of the past through multiple viewpoints; a principle that finds in fortified architectures a particularly productive field of application, given their systemic nature and their long duration over time (Bloch, M., Apologie pour l’histoire ou Métier d’historien, Paris, 1949). As a matter of fact, fortifications are not merely military artefacts, but complex devices that have structured cities and territories, contributing decisively to the definition of their forms and spatial hierarchies. They are situated at the intersection of different scales, ranging from the territorial and urban dimensions to the level of construction and material detail. Within this multiscalar articulation, architecture assumes the role of a hinge, capable of connecting urban design with knowledge of construction techniques, and the overall layout of defensive systems with the material reality of structural solutions. To understand fortifications therefore means recognizing and interpreting the relationships between these different scales, avoiding reductive approaches and fragmented readings. The international conference FORTMED, conceived as a space for encounter and exchange among different disciplines and research traditions, offering a qualified forum for discussion on issues related to the knowledge, conservation, and enhancement of fortifications. In a context marked by profound social, environmental, and technological transformations, the conference aims to contribute to the construction of a shared culture of fortified heritage, grounded in a critical awareness of its historical, architectural, and landscape values, as well as of its role in the present. The idea for FORTMED was born in 2014 from the brilliant initiative of a research group at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, coordinated by Pablo Rodríguez-Navarro, who gathered international researchers on this topic with the primary objective of exchanging and sharing knowledge on fortifications to understand better, evaluate, manage, and enhance them. On this basis, the FORTMED 2015 conference, organised at the Instituto Universitario de Restauración del Patrimonio of the Universitat Politècnica de València (15, 16 and 17 October 2015), was proposed with the hope of starting a new tradition and making FORTMED a consolidated reality. Since then, eight other institutions have taken up the tradition. The second edition of FORTMED 2016 was organised by the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence and chaired by Giorgio Verdiani on 10, 11 and 12 November 2016. The third edition of FORTMED 2017 was curated by Víctor Echarri Iribarren and held on 26, 27, and 28 October 2017 at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura of the Universitat d’Alacant. The fourth edition of FORTMED 2018 was organised by the Department of Architecture and Design of the Politecnico di Torino (18, 19 and 20 October 2018), chaired by Anna Marotta and Roberta Spallone. The fifth edition of FORTMED 2020, organised by the Escuela de Estudios Árabes in Granada under the coordination of Julio Navarro Palazón and Luis José García-Pulido, suffered several setbacks due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, moving from an in-person conference scheduled for 26, 27 and 28 March 2020 in Granada to an online conference on 4, 5 and 6 November 2020. Precisely because of these difficult circumstances and the “slow return to normality”, there was a time jump that led to the sixth edition of FORTMED 2023, organised by the Department of Energy, Systems, Territory and Construction Engineering (DESTEC) of the University of Pisa under the coordination of Marco Giorgio Bevilacqua and Denise Ulivieri on 23rd and 24 and 25 March 2023. Since then, conferences have been held annually, with the seventh edition, FORTMED 2024, organised by Gjergji Islami and Denada Veizaj with the support of the Polytechnic University of Tirana, taking place on 18, 19 and 20 April 2024. The eighth and final edition, FORTMED 2025, was hosted by the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli in Caserta and chaired by Ornella Zerlenga and Vincenzo Cirillo on 10, 11 and 12 April 2025. Looking at this sequence of events, we can appreciate some aspects that make this conference unique. On the one hand, international venues demonstrate a desire to build and grow a large community around the domain of fortifications. On the other hand, there is the incredible quantitative and qualitative richness contained in the macro-theme of fortifications, which is developed through a huge number of theoretical and existing case studies scattered across territories and expressed in multiple forms of study and analysis aimed at knowledge, conservation, and promotion. A complex and rich ecosystem, represented by FORTMED over the years with great care, and perfectly represented by the collection of open-access conference proceedings, which guarantees excellent visibility and accessibility. With the ninth edition of the Rome conference, the FORTMED series of publications reaches 24 volumes in 2026, with more than 10,000 pages dedicated to research on the macro-theme of fortifications, a heritage to be preserved and promoted. The comprehensive overview of such a rich and diverse system of knowledge is certainly a harbinger of future developments, confirming the valuable insight gained in 2015. The same evidence is provided by the fact that the annual event always attracts a large number of scholars, showing that this subject is constantly evolving and offers new nutrition for thought, while increasingly consolidating a community built over time. The FORTMED 2026 Conference, now reaching its 9th edition, will be in Rome from 19th to 21th of February, 2026, hosted by Sapienza University of Rome, with the support of the Department of History, Representation and Restoration of Architecture and the Faculty of Architecture. The conference, following the past format, is structured around seven thematic areas, designed to cover the full spectrum of research and practice in the field of fortified heritage: Historical and Documentary, Theoretical Concepts, Research on Built Heritage, Characterization of Geomaterials; Digital Heritage, Culture and Management of Cultural Heritage, Miscellaneous. In this context, the challenges and opportunities offered by digitalization assume a central role. Digital technologies now allow the collection, organization and interrelation of large quantities of heterogeneous data, making it possible to construct complex knowledge systems capable of reflecting the multilayered nature of fortifications. However, such tools cannot be regarded as mere technical support: they entail methodological and interpretative choices that profoundly affect the way heritage is understood and, consequently, transformed. The availability of integrated information systems represents a fundamental resource for guiding more informed restoration projects, founded on critical and shared knowledge, and capable of reconciling conservation, use, and transformation. Alongside the established presence of a large number of research projects in the fields of history, design, modelling and representation, diagnostics, it is therefore unsurprising that the Rome edition of FORTMED 2026 features a significant number of contributions devoted to restoration, understood not as an exclusively technical practice or as an isolated specialized field, but as a privileged space of synthesis between historical knowledge, critical interpretation, and design. The restoration of fortifications, given their complex and stratified nature, indeed requires constant engagement with historical reading, material analysis, structural assessment, and interpretation of cultural values, placing design at the centre of an articulate and reflective knowledge process. The prominence of these studies reflects a widespread sensitivity towards design as a critical act, capable of engaging with the long-term endurance, incompleteness, and heterogeneity of fortified systems, while avoiding standardized approaches and one-dimensional solutions. An expression of a shared epistemological stance, which recognizes in restoration design a space of mediation between memory and contemporaneity, between permanence and change. This cultural orientation finds particularly fertile ground in Rome and connects with the well-established tradition of the Roman school of restoration, which has always emphasized the inseparable relationship between reading the work, recognizing its stratifications, and assuming responsibility for contemporary intervention. Within this framework, the decision to invite Donatella Fiorani as a keynote speaker for the conference is particularly pertinent for the role her research has played in developing a restoration approach founded on critical knowledge and design responsibility, as well as for her specific contributions to the study of fortified architectures, approached as complex systems where constructional, historical, territorial, and landscape dimensions are intertwined. Her work feeds the debate on restoration not merely as a tool of preservation, but as a field of theoretical elaboration capable of guiding the transformation of fortified heritage in the present. Besides, the choice to choose Pilar Chias Navarro as keynote speaker lies in her interest on the documentation and dissemination of cultural heritage, in particular on the analysis of architecture, cities and landscapes as essential cultural resources. She also specialises in the study of ancient cartography as an essential tool for understanding the evolution of landscapes, as well as in the use of GIS and remote sensing tools for impact assessment. The multidisciplinary and multiscalar research applications of these two invited speakers are representative of the complexity of the fortifications. Reflection on knowledge is inevitably intertwined with consideration of the processes of heritagization of fortifications and city walls. As Françoise Choay has emphasised, heritage is not a fixed category, but the result of a cultural process that attributes value to certain objects, places, or systems, selecting them within a broader built reality (Choay, F., L’allégorie du patrimoine, Paris, 1992). In the case of fortifications, heritagization has involved a profound transformation of status: from functional military infrastructures to elements recognized as carriers of historical, identity-based, and symbolic values. This transition is not without ambiguity, as Choay observes, since the risk lies in reducing heritage to a museumized object or an iconic image, separated from its functional dimension and everyday life. The challenge, therefore, is to consciously manage these processes, recognizing fortifications as active agents in the present, as cultural devices capable of balancing between memory, design, and social practices. It is no coincidence that this dialogue takes place in Rome, a city where the relationship between walls and urban fabric is particularly evident. The Roman walls, in their various historical phases, do not merely define a defensive perimeter, but rather constitute a threshold—a porous limit that is at once deeply lived. They continue to accompany and shape the experience of the contemporary city, functioning as a spatial and symbolic device that links past and present. Rome thus provides an emblematic context for reflecting on the role of fortifications in the modern city: not as isolated relics, but as cultural infrastructures capable of generating new relationships, practices, and meanings. Within this perspective, FORTMED 2026 is conceived not only as a moment for presenting the state of the art in research, but also as an opportunity to envision future scenarios, promoting a vision of fortified heritage founded on critical knowledge, design responsibility, and an awareness of the equal and relational value of all its components. Michele Russo & Marta Acierno FORTMED 26 Chairs