Imago Urbis

Las ciudades españolas vistas por los viajeros (siglos XVI-XIX)

Abstract

Luis Sazatornil Ruiz and Vidal de la Madrid Álvarez (coords.), Imago Urbis. Las ciudades españolas vistas por los viajeros (siglos XVI-XIX), Gijón, Ediciones Trea / Museo de Bellas Artes de Asturias, 2019, ISBN 978-84-17978-45-9. This volume, resulting from the R&D project 'Urban Cultures in Early Modern Spain', assembles an extensive iconographic repertoire—prints, drawings, photographs, and illustrations—drawn from major documentary collections in northern Spain, tracing the visual itinerary of Spanish cities from the first Renaissance chorographies through the emergence of photography in the nineteenth century. The work is structured in five sections—introductory studies and four chronological chapters (Early Modern, Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Realism)—with contributions by leading specialists, while also recovering little-studied authors and images. The reviewer assesses the publication very positively, highlighting its methodological rigour, the breadth of its iconographic corpus, and its status as an essential reference for the study of urban iconography and the image of Spanish cities in the early modern period.