Giovan Giacomo Paleari Fratino

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 Presidios in North Africa.

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.

[5] 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.

[a] Such towers were typically used to protect a vulnerable shoreline, and were round structures about 10 to 15 metres (33 to 49 ft) high, with very thick, mortar-bound walls.

Calvi designed a wall that ran in a straight line eastward from the coast for about 280 metres (920 ft), terminating on the foot of a precipice.

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.

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.

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.

[3] King Philip II of Spain built the fortifications at Pamplona, starting in 1569, to designs by Giacomo Palearo and Vespasiano Gonzaga.

[19][20] 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.