In the following centuries, Klagenfurt suffered fires, earthquakes, invasions of locusts, and attacks from Islamic Ottomans, and was ravaged by the Peasants' Wars. In 1514, a fire almost completely destroyed the city, and in 1518 Emperor Maximilian I, unable to rebuild it, despite the loud protests of the citizens, ceded Klagenfurt to the Estates, the nobility of the Duchy. Never before had such a thing happened. The new owners, however, brought about an economic renaissance and the political and cultural ascendancy in Klagenfurt. A canal was dug to connect the city to the lake as a supply route for timber to rebuild the city and to feed the city's new moats; the noble families had their town-houses built in the duchy's new capital; the city was enlarged along a geometrical chequer-board lay-out according to the Renaissance ideas of the Italian architect Domenico dell'Allio; a new city centre square, the "Neuer Platz", was constructed; and the new fortifications that took half a century to build made Klagenfurt the strongest fortress north of the Alps.