Giovan Giacomo Paleari Fratino Giovan Giacomo Paleari Fratino ( 1520 – 1586 ) , known as " El Fratin " or " Il Fratino " ( " The Little Friar " ) , was a military engineer who served the Spanish Emperor Charles V , and then his son Philip II of Spain . He is known for having designed the first Martello tower as well as many other fortifications . Family . Giovan Giacomo Paleari Fratino came from the Paleari Fratino family of Morcote . This Lombard town , near to Lugano , had long been contested between Milan and Como . It became part of the Swiss Confederacy in 1517 . A military engineer by occupation , his brothers Bernardino and Giorgio followed the same trade , as did Giorgio ' s son Francesco and grandson Pietro . Giacomo and the other members of his family designed and built fortifications throughout Spanish territory , which at that time also included Portugal , parts of Italy and Presidio s in North Africa . Martello tower . During the Italian War of 1551 – 1559 , Giovan Fratino initially served in the French army . After being captured by the Spanish in 1558 he joined the army of Philip II . Giovan and his brother Giorgio were assigned to the Governor of Milan , tasked with strengthening the old Sforza Castle . In 1563 his services were lent to the Genoese , allies of Spain , to help with the defenses of Corsica . Fratino arrived in Corsica on 29 January 1563 , accompanied by Colonel Giorgio Doria . He spent the rest of the year on the island , improving the Calvi , Ajaccio , Bastia and Bonifacio citadels and establishing new fortifications along the coast . On 30 December 1563 , after he had left the island , he gave the Genoese a diagram and building instructions for the tower at Mortella Point , which was to help defend the town of San Fiorenzo by protecting the entrance to the gulf . These have been preserved in the archives of Genoa . The tower was built between 1564 and October 1565 . Typical towers at that time were square and had a defending machicolation . Fratino designed a 3 - story cylindrical tower with a rooftop gun platform , and with no machicolation , an innovative design that was only accepted after some resistance . The Torra di Mortella in what is now the Saint - Florent , Haute - Corse was the first of what became known as Martello tower s . Such towers were typically used to protect a vulnerable shoreline , and were round structures about high , with very thick , mortar - bound walls . The fort would hold heavy artillery in the upper level , with accommodations for fifteen or twenty soldiers on the ground floor . The name comes from the location of the tower at Mortella ( Myrtle ) Point on the island . In 1794 the garrison of the " Torre della Mortella " resisted two British frigates with over 100 guns between them for two days . The tower had just one 6 - pounder gun and two 18 - pounders . Although it was eventually captured by a landing force , the performance was so impressive that Britain , and later the United States , built copies of it around the world . Gibraltar . In Gibraltar , Charles V had commissioned the engineer Giovanni Battista Calvi to construct a wall that would defend Gibraltar from attackers landing on the tip of the peninsula to the south . Calvi designed a wall that ran in a straight line eastward from the coast for about , terminating on the foot of a precipice . A traverse wall would run southward along the top of the cliff , and then a zigzag wall would continue eastward up to the crest of the Rock of Gibraltar . Work began on these defenses . Philip II of Spain succeeded Charles V in 1558 , and commissioned El Fratino to improve the defenses . El Fratino decided that the traverse should be abandoned , and what had been done on the zigzag wall should be demolished . Work on the traverse ceased , but Philip II ' s chief engineer Tibúrcio Spannocchi refused allow demolition of the zigzag wall , and it was eventually finished in 1599 . It is the upper portion of what is now called the Charles V Wall . In the meantime , a wall designed by El Fratino had been completed by 1575 , running straight up from the precipice above the end of the lower wall . This wall is usually called the " Moorish Wall " through a mistake about when it was built , or sometimes the Philip II Wall . El Fratino ' s brothers Giorgio and Bernadino may have assisted him in this work . Plans for the traverse wall along the top of the cliff were abandoned . El Fratino converted a tower in the northeast to a bastion , the " Baluarte San Pablo " ( , now North Bastion ) . He built a small bastion at the south - west corner of Charles V Wall , the " Baluarte de Nuestra Señora del Rosario " ( ) . This bastion was later incorporated into the South Bastion , probably by Daniel Specklin . Other fortifications . Malta occupies a strategic position in the Mediterranean . The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent attacked in May 1565 . The island was held by the knights of the Order of St John , who had been given Malta and the port of Tripoli on the North African coast by Charles V of Spain in 1530 . If Malta fell , Philip II ' s possessions of Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples would be threatened . The four - month Siege of Malta was lifted in September 1565 , but the island was ruined . The Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette determined to rebuild , choosing the high ground of Mount Sciberras as the site for the new fortress . The military engineer Francesco Laparelli was commissioned to undertake construction , and the foundation stone of the new city of Valletta was laid in March 1566 . Philip II sent el Fratino to check the design of the fortifications . Giacomo Bosio has recorded the discourse between el Fratino and Laparelli that took place early in April 1566 . King Philip II of Spain built the fortifications at Pamplona , starting in 1569 , to designs by Giacomo Palearo and Vespasiano Gonzaga . The citadel in the south of the town is a regular pentagon , and the city itself was bounded by walls that made it almost a regular hexagon . Paleari and Giovanni Battista Antonelli also assisted Vespasiano Gonzaga in the design of the fortifications of Cartagena in 1570 . In March 1571 , Il Fratino and Vespasiano Gonzaga were sent to inspect the defenses of the frontier between Spain and Navarre . In North Africa , Il Fratino overhauled the defenses of the Spanish " presidios " , or military posts , at Melilla on the coast of Morocco and at La Goletta in Tunisia , finishing the latter fortifications in the summer of 1573 . In 1574 he visited Majorca , still considered vulnerable to Turkish attack despite the Turkish defeat three years before in the Battle of Lepanto . References . Notes Citations Sources