Barcino Metropolis Hispaniae Principatus Cataloniae

Famous "Prospect" map of Barcelona, with a large panorama of the city on the lower part together with a schematic plan of the city above.

"Prospect maps" were very much a German invention and heavily used by the pre-eminent publishing houses of that country. Initially popularised by Johann Baptist Homann, they were then continued by both Homanns Heirs and Homann's apprentice, Matthias Seutter. Finally, Matthias Lotter, Seutter's apprentice continued with the tradition well into the later 18th century. Their format usually follows a city plan which bears a large, continuous panorama or prospect on the lower border of the engraving; this attempted to exploit the newly emerging market for panoramic prints, together with the more traditional map market.

Seutter's "prospect map" of Barcelona is an archetypal product of this school, with its plan of the city on the upper two thirds of the printed surface and a large prospect on the lower border. A large medallion in Barcelona harbour states that among other things, the city is extremely clean but that it is only a 'middle sized city in Spain'. That leaves the question as to why Seutter would spend a lot of money on a grand engraving of this size and quality on a middle sized city in Spain; the answer lies in the further information in that medallion which continues to narrate the complicated and violent history of the city from the early 17th to the early 18th century when it was a grand strategic prize during both the Franco-Spanish War of 1635-59 and the War of the Spanish Succession of 1701-14.

When put in that context, it becomes immediately apparent that the plan of the city is more of a schematic of its defences, with the emphasis on the city walls, its bastions and the internal defensive wall. Tactical approaches can also be seen and most importantly, the famous hill, Montjuic, with its eponymous Castle at its peak, overlooks the whole city and its environs. The panorama on the lower border is a great indicator of the view of the harbour, its quay and a profile of the city behind its walls. Indeed, it was this harbour that was one of its major strategic attractions.

We have been unable to track the source material for either the plan or the panorama used by Seutter for this plan but it is telling that the key for both the map and the panorama is in French, suggesting that the sources for both would have been made while the city was under French rule.

This is one of the grandest prospects of Barcelona and a record of when the city was undergoing seismic changes. Original hand colour. [SP2106]