CubaPLUS Magazine

The San Pedro de la Roca Castle, created at the foot of the beautiful bay of the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, for the defense of the city in colonial times, is an architectural work of great value as it harmonizes with high functionality the Renaissance military engineering with the accidents of the geography where it is located.

It was the famous Italian military architects Bautista and Juan Bautista Antonelli -father and son- who were in charge of its design, as well as that of the Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Morro in Havana.

The guardian fortress of the town of Santiago Apóstol has had few transformations dictated by modernity, even after the 19th century when it lost its defensive character.

In the 17th century, when the dispute between the powers of Spain and England grew, the governor of the city, Pedro de la Roca y Borjas, began the construction of a stone fortress, closely related to the protective forces that had been located since before in the sands of the Bay.

This responded to the strength that maritime navigation and pirate and corsair incursions had gained throughout the Caribbean Sea.

In addition, Santiago de Cuba received the warnings and rebounds of the English expansion in the fiery Caribbean Sea. Even an English attack in 1662 led to the destruction of the fortress, but it was rebuilt and heavily reinforced again between 1663 and 1669.

Later it had to be rebuilt over and over again, in the 17th and 18th centuries, due to the ravages of various earthquakes. But, stubbornly, the people from Santiago made it reborn.

Far from those terrifying times, it has always been a dazzling landscape under the Antillean sun to see the erect Castle of San Pedro de la Roca, and to know that with its related batteries of La Estrella and Santa Catalina and that of Aguadores on the south coast, it defended graceful the bay of Santiago.

It would be necessary to visit it to admire its magnificent structure and size. The Platform of the Holy Trinity is the highest point of the main building, and was built in the 1660s. It is currently a historic center that responds to the National Council of Cultural Heritage. Place of celebrations, protected by laws of the Magna Carta.