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Origin and history

The Royal Tower, also called Grosse Tour, is a circular fortification built in Toulon between 1514 and 1524 on the order of Louis XII. Designed by Italian engineer Giovanni Antonio della Porta, it marks the entrance to the harbour to control access. Its Renaissance architecture, inspired by the Italian torrioni, combines a manerist aesthetic (rustic hulls, cannon frames) and a defensive innovation: two levels of casemates superimposed to fire both the hulls and the masts of enemy ships. The tower, 60 metres in diameter with 7 metre thick walls, incorporates a vaulted central core, tanks, and a drawbridge.

Financed mainly by the crown (30 000 guilders), the Grosse Tour was delivered in 1524 by its commander Jehan du Mottet to the imperials of Charles Quint for 500 ecus. Re-armed by François I, it resists Charles Quint's fleet in 1536 and houses the Toulouse artillery during the wintering of the Ottoman fleet in 1543. Over the centuries, its role evolved: prison under the Revolution (where paolists and revolutionaries crouped), military warehouse, and barracks during world wars. Vauban, in his memoirs of 1679 and 1701, described it as "very beautiful" but unfinished, offering partially realized developments (danjon, round path).

Ranked a Historic Monument in 1947 after World War II damage, the tower was restored and opened to the public in 2006 by the city of Toulon. It now houses an annex to the National Marine Museum. Its adjacent landscape park, on former military grounds, hosts a submarine memorial and the FNRS III bathyscaphe. A symbol of the defense of the harbour, it precedes the forts Balaguier and Lamargue, which will complete its defensive system in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The design of the Grosse Tour reflects the influences of the Italian Renaissance, with scholarly geometry and radiant arches in cul-de-four. Its architect, Della Porta, a member of a Milan dynasty, integrates crawling cradle stairs and alveolate casemates, innovative for the time. Despite its gradual obsolescence in the face of strong bastion, it remains a unique testimony of the military art of the Middle Ages-Renaissance transition in Provence.

The archives show that the construction site, launched in 1514, employs up to 200 workers and is accelerated after 1517, with an estimated total cost of 38,000 pounds. The tower, used as an arsenal, was besieged in 1524 during the campaign of Charles de Bourbon. In the 17th century, low batteries were added by engineer Gombert, but Vauban criticized their efficiency. In 1841, its cannons were modernized, and in 1907, its high platform was equipped with 47 mm parts, which were removed in 1909.

During World War II, occupied by the Germans, the tower was bombed in 1943-44. Restored after 1947, she lost her destroyed barracks. In 1951, it became an annex to the Marine Museum, before being acquired by Toulon in 2006. Its park, created on former military grounds, offers a walk by the sea and pays tribute to submariners, with a memorial erected in 2009.

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