Palmanova

Welcome to Palmanova, a nine-pointed star-shaped fortress town, absolutely one of a kind. Built in 1593 by the Republic of Venice as a fortified border structure in order to face the threat of Turkish raids and the territorial expansion of Austria, it was completed in the early 1800s by Napoleone Bonaparte, being surrounded by three orders of perfectly preserved and visitable fortifications up to the present day.

The city, conceived as a real war machine, has a perfect geometric shape: a nine-pointed star, with a perfectly hexagonal square in the center, from which the six main streets start, placed in a radial pattern. Three of them lead to the city gates oriented towards Udine, Aquileia and Cividale. It was considered the most impregnable city in Europe, with its walls camouflaged by vegetation, almost invisible because it was built below the horizon, and with advanced defensive systems.

Its original name was Palma, symbol of victory, to which Napoleon added the suffix Nova two centuries later.