Munzer in Barcelona – 1:
"On the 21st of this month [September], traveling from Girona for fourteen leagues. we arrived at the most noble city of Barcelona, situated on the banks of the Balearic [Mediterranean] Sea and the capital of all Catalonia. Its magnificently constructed walls of dressed stone, with merlons, crenellations and towers, surrounds its square periphery, right to the edge of the sea.
It is on a most beautiful plain bathed to the south by the sea, and to the east, west and north, it is surrounded by fertile mountains in a sort of semicircle. On the shore of the sea is built the most noble city of Barcelona. It has, as I have said, a very strong wall built all around it."
Judy's Commentary (May 10, 2011)
What Münzer Saw in Barcelona: 1
Barcelona is located on the Mediterranean coast, with the tall hills Montjüic to the south and Tibidabo to the east. To the north, it is flat, as, basically is the city itself. In Münzer’s time the city, like most European cities, was completely surrounded by walls, except along he immediate harbor (see The Wonderful Barcelona Map at the very end of the blog). The urbanized area extended from what is now the Ramblas, to the north, to El Born to the south. The eastern boundary was south of the present-day Plaça de Catalunya. North of the Rambla, a second set of walls had been built, but at this period, it was mostly agricultural, punctuated by a few convents.
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