Venetian Works of Defence between the 16th and 17th Centuries: Stato da Terra – Western Stato da Mar

My wife and I were recently in Bergamo with a couple of friends that don't collect postcards. It's not easy for non collectors to understand the sacrifices of collectors, but it was fun and we hope to repeat the experience in new destinations and maybe they become collectors

Porta S. Giacomo

Bergamo wouldn’t be the same without its impressive Venetian Walls. This spectacular circuit is over six km long.

They were built starting from 1561 by the Republic of Venice in order to face enemies attacks.

The Walls consist of 14 bastions, 2 platforms, 100 embrasures for cannons, 2 armouries, four gates, not to mention the underground structures featuring sallies, passages and tunnels. - in: http://www.visitbergamo.net/en/object-details/2979-venetian-walls-and-unesco/

Colleoni Chapel and Santa Maria Maggiore

The Cappella Colleoni (Italian: "Colleoni Chapel") is a church and mausoleum in Bergamo in northern Italy.

Dedicated to the saints Bartholomew, Mark and John the Baptist, it was built between 1472 and 1476 as the personal shrine for the condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni, a member of one of the most outstanding families of the city, and his beloved daughter Medea. The site chosen was that of the sacristy of the nearby church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which was demolished by Colleoni's soldiers.

The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore is a major church in the upper town of Bergamo, Northern Italy.

The church was founded in 1137 on the site of another church from the 8th century dedicated to St Mary, which had been in turn erected over a Roman temple of the Clemence. The high altar was consecrated in 1185 and in 1187 the presbytery and the transept wings were completed. Due to financial troubles, the works dragged for the whole 13th–14th centuries. The bell tower was built from 1436 (being completed around the end of the century), while in 1481–1491 a new sacristy added after the old one had been destroyed by Bartolomeo Colleoni to erect his personal mausoleum, the Colleoni Chapel.

In 1521, Pietro Isabello finished the south-western portal, also known as Porta della Fontana. The edifice was restored and modified in the 17th century. - in: wikipedia

Peschiera del Garda

This postcard was sent by Kerstin

Peschiera del Garda is a town and comune in the province of Verona, in Veneto, Italy. When Lombardy-Venetia was under Austrian rule, Peschiera was the northwest anchor of the four fortified towns constituting the Quadrilatero. The fortress is on an island in the river Mincio at its outlet from Lake Garda.

The fortress at Peschiera played a prominent part in most military campaigns conducted in northern Italy after 1400, especially during the Italian campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. - in: wikipedia

Palmanova

This postcard was sent by Cristina

Palmanova is a town and comune in Northeast Italy. The town is an example of star fort of the late Renaissance, built up by the Venetian Republic in 1593.

Palmanova was built following the ideals of a utopia. It is a concentric city with the form of a star, with three nine-sided ring roads intersecting in the main military radiating streets. It was built at the end of the 16th century by the Venetian Republic which was, at the time, a major center of trade. It is actually considered to be a fort, or citadel, because the military architect Giulio Savorgnan designed it to be a Venetian military station on the eastern frontier as protection from the Ottoman Empire. - in: wikipedia

Roman Forum of Zadar and St. Donatus Church

This postcard was sent by Steffi

Zadar is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Croatia. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region.

Zadar

This postcard was sent by Antonella

In 1409, king Ladislaus I sold Zadar to the Venetians. The 16th and 17th centuries were noted in Zadar for Ottoman attacks. Ottomans captured the continental part of Zadar at the beginning of the 16th century and the city itself was all the time in the range of Turkish artillery. Due to that threat, the construction of a new system of castles and walls began. These defense systems changed the way the city looked. To make place for the pentagon castles many houses and churches were taken down, along with an entire suburb: Varoš of St. Martin. After the 40-year-long construction Zadar became the biggest fortified city in Dalmatia, empowered by a system of castles, bastions and canals filled with seawater. - in: wikipedia

St. Nicholas' Fortress

This postcard was sent by Agata

St. Nicholas' Fortress (Croatian: Tvrđava Sv. Nikole) is a fortress located in the town of Šibenik, one of the oldest native Croatian towns on the eastern shores of the Adriatic, in central Dalmatia, Croatia.
St. Nicholas' Fortress was built on the left side at the entrance to St. Anthony Channel(kanal sv. Ante), on the island called Ljuljevac.
The fortress is one of the most valuable and best preserved examples of defense architecture in Dalmatia. It is made of brick because that material was considered to be most resistant to cannonballs, while the foundations are made of stone. - in: wikipedia

Kotor

This postcard was sent by Christina

The fortifications of Kotor are an integrated historical fortification system that protected the medieval town of Kotor containing ramparts, towers, citadels, gates, bastions, forts, cisterns, a castle, and ancillary buildings and structures. They incorporate military architecture of Illyria, Byzantium, Venice, and Austria. 

The medieval part of the town of Kotor is located on a triangular piece of land that is bordered by the most inner extension of the Bay of Kotor at its south-western side, the river Skurda toward the North, and the mountain of St. John (San Giovanni) towards the East. City walls protect the city on its northern and south-western side, towards the waters. - in: wikipedia

The six components  (in red what I have):

• Fortified city of Bergamo
• Fortified city of Peschiera del Garda
• City Fortress of Palmanova
• Defensive System of Zadar
• Fort of St. Nikola, Šibenik-Knin County
• Fortified city of Kotor