The city of alexandria, of the sardinian states, which has been distinguished in a latin which cannot claim at least its antiquity, by the additional name of staticllorum (alexandria statiellorum), the famous scientific and commercial metropolis of egypt, is one of the most important places in pemont. Its population, which amounts to 31,000 inhabitants, its religious buildings, among which artists cite its cathedral and its churches of saint-laurent and suntalexandre, its theater, its academy and its factories, are not, however, what makes its greatest importance. Sitting on the edge of the tanaro, in the beautiful plain watered by this river and the fontanone, and on which our arms imprint an illustrious name: plain of marengo; it owes it above all to the military position of its site. This position makes it, in fact, the key to upper italy and the boulevard of piedmont. It was to the very character of her position that she spoke of her birth. The lombard line which gave it the name of the sovereign pontiff alexander iii, founded it only to oppose it like a dike to the forces of frederick barbarossa. It must be believed, however, that the fortifications with which it was then surrounded did not constitute a very formidable aegis, because the emperor, laughing at his enemies, replied one day to a lombard ambassador who had mentioned the name of this city to him: — alexandria! which name! alexandria of straw!. It would not be behers that i would need to destroy its ramparts. That would be a match!
these fortifications, increased and renewed several times, had however never constituted a place of war in relation to its strategic situation, before the considerable work that the piedmontese government has just carried out there, work which it is currently completing. By new works. It is the view of the citadel taken from the tanaro side and that of the glacis covering the railway and defending the entrance to the watercourse, the construction of which the neighboring populations have been busy for several months, which represent the two engravings from page 173 of this issue. Mac' vernoll. Date: 12 March 1859.
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