Maximilian's tower, built by the Austrians between 1843and 1844, stands on the site of the previous fort that the French had previously built at S.Erasmo in 1811-1814. Surrounded by a water-filled moat, and by an irregular polygonal embankment, it defended the southernn shoreline of the S.erasmo area, with its entire legth facing the mouth of the Lido harbour. The tower is the only example of a cylindrical fortified "Maximilian tower" in Italy and forms a variantion of the 27 Maximilian towers with bolckhouses, at the entrenched camp at Linz, which were decreed by Francesco I on 02 February 1831, and designed by the Grand-Duke Giovanni Massimiliano. It was used as an antiaircraft battery during the Second World War, before being occupied by German troops after 1943. At the end of the war, in April'45, it was badly damaged in an onlyparially successful attempt by the occupants to blow it up before they fled. Now it is used for exhibition and museum space, and a meeting place for associations.