The Italian architect Giovan Giacomo Paleari Fratino designed the Tour de Mortella and Colonel Giorgio Doria directed the construction between 1563 and 1564.

It was one of a series of coastal defences constructed by the Republic of Genoa between 1530 and 1620 to repulse attacks by Barbary pirates.

[1] On 7 February 1794, two British warships, HMS Fortitude (74 guns) and HMS Juno (32 guns), unsuccessfully attacked the tower at Mortella Point; the tower eventually fell to land-based forces under Major-General David Dundas and Lieutenant-General John Moore after two days of heavy fighting.

[2] Still, the British were impressed by the effectiveness of the tower when it was properly supplied and defended so they copied the design.

This earlier date is when Spanish and Genoese troops led by Admiral Andrea Doria besieged the French forces occupying the port of Saint-Florent after the Franco-Turkish invasion of the island.