Fort San Felice, Military fort in Chioggia, Italy
Fort San Felice is a 25,000-square-metre star-shaped fortress at the Chioggia port mouth, built on a barena. Inside its ramparts stand the Castello della Luppa of 1385, with 1.8-metre-thick stone walls and barrel-vaulted ground-floor rooms, the 1704 Tirali portal in Istrian stone, powder magazines and an Austrian Blockhaus of 1830–1840.
A wooden castle on this site was destroyed in the 1381 war between Genoa and Venice. In 1384 the Venetian Senate approved a masonry castle, begun the following year; the fortress was later reworked under French, Austrian and Italian rule, and was abandoned in 1979.
The fort's name comes from a lookout post on the ramparts dedicated to San Felice, one of the patron saints of the Diocese of Chioggia. The seaward entrance was added in 1704 by architect Andrea Tirali: a Doric portal in Istrian stone, identical inside and out. The fort was reachable only by water.
The fortress was reachable only by sea; the monumental entrance by Andrea Tirali, built in 1704, faces the harbour mouth. The site has been abandoned since 1979 and many structures are in ruins, so visits follow paths laid out by the Comitato Forte San Felice after 2016. Approach by boat from the Chioggia harbour mouth.
The fort's name comes from a lookout post on the ramparts dedicated to San Felice, one of the patron saints of the Diocese of Chioggia. The site was earlier called castello di Chioza and castello della Luppa.
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