Valamar Blog

“Fecite iustitiam et dabo pacem in finibus vestris” or translated, “Be fair and I will bring peace to your city”. This is a famous quotation from the Gospel inscribed on the top of the Pentagonal Tower in Porec, in an open book held by the Venetian symbol, a lion with wings. The Pentagonal Tower in Porec was constructed in the 15th century, more precisely in 1447, above an older medieval tower dating from the 13th century.

The tower was reinforced landwards in the 15th century to provide a higher level of protection from a possible assault of the Turks. Its acute angle was built in the direction from which the enemy’s assault was expected. The objective of such construction scheme was to mitigate the consequences of possible attacks.

Is symmetric pair stood on the opposite side of this tower, on the other side of Decumanus street. The remnants of this parallel tower, today covered with architecture, were discovered during excavations of deep layers of the Pentagonal Tower. The tower was built during the period of Podestàs Nicolò Lion whose family’s coat of arms and initials are engraved in stone, under the lion and the quotation mentioned in the first sentence of this text. The Tower was constructed by two Triestinians, Ivan de Pari (Iohannes de Parri) and his son Lazar (Lazar de Parri). According to the inscriptions, the father was the constructor, the son the sculptor and another thing worth mentioning is that this pair worked on the construction of many other sites, as for example, the gothic style church on Kras.

In the mid 15th century, due to the increased danger of Turks’ assaults, the whole eastern side of the city of Porec was reconstructed and reinforced and these works begun with the additional fortification of the Pentagonal Tower. The works were completed in 1472 with the fortification of angle towers Pietra de Mula and Peškera. It is also interesting that the towers fortified in this way, are in fact, a kind of tower within the tower due to their peculiar method of construction - the outer wall is constructed from stone, as well as the inner wall, while the space between the two walls is filled with earth and fine-grained stones.

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