1578: An Arch on the Plan of Barcelona

[KD Archive]

We have this 1567-1578 plan of Barcelona with a bizarre arch in the right top corner. I believe the image was a part of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum atlas.

• Any ideas what this arch could be?
• Also, do you have any idea what kind of ships could be entering through that arch?

Full Image

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Any help with the translation would be appreciated.

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Zoomable sources:

• Source 1​
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Username: alezzio
Date: 2019-11-24 08:57:52
Reaction Score: 2

First time poster, long time lurker. I love this website. I am from Barcelona, I always see a lot of things related to his forum when I am visiting the streets or studying catalan culture/history.

I think what we see in the image could just be the rainbow.
I read and was told a lot of catalan songs and stories and whatnot about the rainbow as a child, and I am realizing now that I've been abroad for some time that it's true that it appears fairly more frequently in our coast, so it may be a place where a rainbow is easily formed and may have gotten into our folklore and depictions of it. We call it "San Martin's Arch".
As a clue for this, if someone takes a look into the text, they could straight look for words related to colors and atmospheric conditions.

 

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Username: gnomish
Date: 2019-11-25 04:35:35
Reaction Score: 1

your best color image has light blue daubs of paint on the ships? i looked at the other sources and they didn't have this. i did some a little searching and came across I think another version of the image that you don't have. It doesn't have the blue daubs on the boats. IT comes from the hebrew unversity of jerusalem so it's gotta be good amiright?

• Source

edit: doing some googling of braun hogenberg i found this. I thinks alezzio is probably right it'sjust a rainbow

edit 2: i feel like this site is downsizing my image somehow, even when I click I cant get the full resolution, so try this link:

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[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-11-25 04:58:33
Reaction Score: 2

The original was black and white. All the other ones are later colorings.

 

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Username: gnomish
Date: 2019-11-25 05:27:27
Reaction Score: 1

The original was black and white. All the other ones are later colorings.

Ahhhhh. Okay, that would definitely explain why almost every image has different colors but the "pencilwork" remains the same.

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-11-25 06:38:57
Reaction Score: 6

This could be a rainbow, but I did not ask about those ships for nothing.

What are Trojan War time biremes doing on this 16th century engraving? These are Homeric times ships.

Source

I guess these could also be ancient Roman ones, but it does not really help us much.

Source

On the other hand these could be galleys belonging to the Barbary Pirates, but did they really use 2,000 year old tech?

 

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Username: gnomish
Date: 2019-11-25 06:50:20
Reaction Score: 1

What are the 45(is it 33?) degree crane things off the ships meant to be? they're as stout as the main sail piller

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2019-11-25 06:52:44
Reaction Score: 1

Those are for sails. Venetians used something similar. But what happened to the progress?

 

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Username: nanuko
Date: 2019-11-28 07:52:45
Reaction Score: 2

Intriguing image. I have not found similar "rainbows" in any engraving of the time.
Can download this entire book from archive.org
Civitates Orbis Terrarvn

The “arch” is in page 50.

Nothing remarkable in the text. Nor on the previous page where we found an expanded description of the history of the city…

But I found something interesting in the index (page 268). Here we find a reference to the foundation of the Jesuit College of Barcelona in 1546.

Jesuit alarm on! So you have to keep looking.
I've only been twice In Barcelona but I think this church next to the arch could be Sta. María del Mar (closely related to St. Ignacio de Loyola). Maybe Alezzio could help.

If I’m right, the drawing would be showing the city from the West and behind the rainbow would be the East ... Jerusalem? …And when Ignacio de Loyola returns from Jerusalem ... we have the Society of Jesus.

Twisted approach but ...
Thanks for reading.

 

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Username: alezzio
Date: 2019-11-29 01:23:03
Reaction Score: 1

You are right, that is Santa Maria del Mar. The tip of the arch points exactly where in 1716 (right after the 'catalan revolution'), La Ciutadella, a 5 point star fort was built.

 

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Username: nanuko
Date: 2019-11-29 10:04:31
Reaction Score: 1

But the book is allegedly XVI-XVII century???
wiki link (spanish)

hi-Story is actually a joke!!!

¡Gracias por la ayuda!
Saludos desde el Finisterrae... very close relationship with "Cap de Creus" and "cabo de Touriñán", but it's another story.

 

[luckyducky007]

I have a memory that is a bit on and off topic is regards to archs.

I remember when i was a kid reading the Roald Dahl book the boy, the story about his life and remember him mentioning flying under a giant arch that existed in egypt/iraq area during the world war. That and there even being a photo of it in the book also. This thing was massive about the size of what the barcelionian one could have been.

I only mention as i havent yet found any information about this arch that i remember. There is the picture of the arch of Ctesiphon, however this isnt the one i remember. It was more in line with this one or the st louis arch. It looked like that.