Glossary · B
Bastion
Also called bastions, angle bastion
An angled projection from the wall of a fortification, shaped so that fire from its flanks can sweep the faces of neighbouring bastions and the curtain between them.
See also: Trace italienne
Rules that use the word
The bastioned trace. Give a fortified town a polygonal wall with an angled bastion at every corner, so that each face of every bastion and every stretch of curtain wall can be swept by fire from its neighbours.
Make the attacker turn his right side to the wall. Set the main gate back in a narrow court between the wall and a projecting bastion placed on the right hand of those who approach, so that an enemy at the gate has his unshielded side to the defenders.
The fortified city as a regular polygon. Give a new city a regular polygonal outline with a bastion at every angle, put the principal piazza at the centre with the chief church and the seat of government on it, and distribute lesser squares for the markets through the quarters.
A hexagonal parade ground at the centre. Make the central square a regular hexagon from which six streets leave, three to the gates and three to bastions, so that the garrison assembled in the middle can reach any gate or any point of the walls directly.
Where it appears in the book
In the chapters Renaissance and Baroque.
Nearby in the glossary
Bargeboard · Barrel vault · Base · Basilica · Batter · Bay · Bay window · Beaux-Arts