With the economic and social changes in Europe at the end of the sixteenth century and the formation and consolidation of an urban network throughout the continent, questions such as poverty, sanitation, and hygiene began to pose acute problems in the cities of the age. A new school of thought, known in Spain as Ciencia de Policía and in the Mediterranean area as Policy Science, proposed solutions for these problems and tested them through practical interventions inside the urban setting. In this article the author compares the work of two thinkers: Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, a Spaniard, and Nicolas Delamare, a Frenchman. Writing in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Pérez de Herrera examined the organization of Madrid, the newly founded (though still not firmly established) capital of Spain. Delamare based his study on the Paris of the early eighteenth century. The author stresses the coincidences in some of the ideas of both thinkers and shows how their writings begin to embody a new idea of the city, many aspects of which have survived until the present day.
Leonardo Benevolo, La ciudad europea (Barcelona, 1993), 130. Also of interest is Jan de Vries, European Urbanization: 1500-1800 (London, 1984).
2.
On the term Policía and on its influence on the design of cities in Spanish America, see Richard L. Kagan, Urban Images of the Hispanic World (1493-1793) (New Haven, CT, 2000). Chap. 2 is particularly interesting.
3.
It seems more accurate in English to use the term policy, rather than police, to denote this school of thought, given the range of objectives it pursued: hygiene, urban development, and of course public order. Here we use the term city management to refer to the set of measures aiming to make the city more efficient and easier to govern. On the formation and development of this school of thought, see Pedro Fraile, La otra ciudad del Rey. Ciencia de Policía y organización urbana en España (Madrid, 1997). Also see Pedro Fraile, "Putting Order into the Cities: The Evolution of ‘Policy Science’ in Eighteenth-Century Spain," Urban History 25, no. 1 (1998): 22-35. Ricardo Anguita, Ordenanza y policía urbana: Los orígenes de la reglamentación edificatoria en España (Granada, Spain, 1997).
4.
Nicolas Delamare, Traité de la Police, où l’on trouvera l’Histoire de son établissement, les functions et les prerogatives de ses magistrats; toutes les lois et tous les reglaments qui la concernent: On y joint une description historique et topographique de Paris, et huit plans gravez, qui répresentent son ancien État et ses diverses acroissements, avec un recueil de tous les status et reglaments de six corps de marchands et de toutes les Communautez des Arts et Metiers (Paris, 1705- 1738).
5.
Later on we examine the work of Pérez de Herrera in more detail, and so here we cite just the main work of the other author, who was also an important forerunner of Ciencia de Policía. Jerónimo Castillo de Bobadilla, Política para Corregidores y señores de vasallos en tiempos de paz y de guerra: y para prelados en lo espiritual, y temporal entre los legos, Jueces de Comisión, Regidores, Abogados, y otros oficios públicos: y de Jurisdicciones, Preeminencias, Residencias y salarios de ellos: y de lo tocante a las Ordenes y Caballeros de ella, 2 vols. (Madrid, 1597).
6.
A considerable amount has been written on Jerónimo Castillo de Bobadilla. Examples are the classic study by Francisco Tomás y Valiente, "Castillo de Bobadilla (1547-1605). Semblanza personal y profesional de un juez del Antiguo Régimen," Anuario de Historia del derecho español 45 (1975): 159-232. Also of interest is Valle Labrada Rubio, Filosofía jurídica y política de Jerónimo Castillo de Bobadilla (Pamplona, Spain, 1999). On the influence of this author’s ideas, see James Casey, Early Modern Spain: A Social History (London, 1999), esp. chap. 8.
7.
It is impossible to analyze the complex situation of those times here. For the changes in mentality of the period, Maravall’s works can be considered as classics. José Antonio Maravall, Estado moderno y mentalidad social (siglos XV a XVIII) (Madrid, 1972); José Antonio Maravall, Estudios de historia del pensamiento español (Madrid, 1973); José Antonio Maravall, Utopía y reformismo en la España de los Austrias (Madrid, 1982). On the dynamism of certain cities and economic sectors, see Alberto Marcos Martín, España en los siglos XVI, XVII y XVIII (Barcelona, 2000), 370-75.
8.
Manuel Castells, The Informational City. Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process (London, 1989), esp. chap. 4.
9.
The literature on the interventions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is abundant, and there is no need to present even a very succinct summary here. We refer readers interested to Leonardo Benevolo, Diseño de la ciudad-5. El arte y la ciudad contemporánea, 3rd ed. (Barcelona, 1982); Horacio Capel, La morfología de las ciudades I (Barcelona, 2002); Franco Mancuso, Las experiencias del zoning (Barcelona, 1980); Javier García-Bellido, ed., Cerdà y su influjo en los ensanches de poblaciones (Madrid, 2004).
10.
James Q. Wilson and George V. Kelling, "Broken Windows,"Atlantic Monthly249, no. 3 (1982): 29-38. A great deal has been written on "broken windows," but we do not explore the matter further here, as our aim is merely to give an example of a territorial strategy related to the governability of the city.
11.
In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain the memoriales or discursos were usually short texts addressed to political offices proposing intervention plans to solve problems that had been previously analyzed.
12.
On the transmission of knowledge and the appearance of simultaneous discoveries, see Thomas S. Kuhn, "The Conservation of Energy as an Example of Simultaneous Discovery," in The Essential Tension (Chicago, 1977).
13.
For earlier Spanish writings on Ciencia de Policía, see Fraile, La otra ciudad, esp. chap. 2. The work by Castillo de Bobadilla cited above, Política para Corregidores y señores de vasallos, is particularly important. As we said earlier, to understand the concept of "policia" and its influence on the design of cities, Kagan, Urban Images, is very useful, esp. chap. 2.
14.
The original work, Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, Amparo de pobres (Madrid, 1598) was recently reprinted: Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, Amparo de pobres (1598) (Madrid, 1975). Our quotations are taken from this modern edition, which includes an introduction by Michel Cavillac, "Introducción," in Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, Amparo de pobres (1598) (Madrid, 1975).
15.
Cavillac describes this document in the following terms: Relación de los muchos y particulares servicios que por espacio de cuarenta y un años el Dr. Pérez de Herrera, Protomédico de las galeras de España. . . . This document (eighteen folios) is found in the miscellaneous volume titled Discursos morales y politicos (folios 166-83), held by the Biblioteca Nacional de España (signature R/28.762)
16.
Cavillac, "Introducción," ix. In texts from the early modern era the term republic is frequently used, respecting its Latin etymology, res publica, that is, referring to public matters in general. The term was synonymous with the state or the city itself as a social institution.
17.
Cavillac, "Introducción," xxii.
18.
Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la católica y Real Majestad el Rey Don Felipe II nuestro señor, en que se le suplica, que considerando las muchas cualidades y grandezas de la villa de Madrid, se sirva de ver si convendria honrarla y adornarla de muralla (Madrid, 1597).
19.
Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe III, nuestro señor: Cerca de la forma y traça, como parece podrían remediarse algunos pecados, excessos y desordenes (Madrid, 1598).
20.
On the circumstances in which Pérez de Herrera wrote both documents, see Alfredo Alvar, Los traslados de la Corte de Madrid de 1601 y 1606 (Madrid, 2006), 32-44.
21.
Kagan presents an overview of this intellectual tradition and of its most important authors and works. Kagan, Urban Images, esp. chap. 1.
22.
Alvar, Los traslados, 19. Though it refers to a period slightly later than the one that concerns us here, Santiago Quesada, La idea de ciudad en la cultura hispana moderna (Barcelona, 1992), is very interesting.
23.
On the consequences of capital status, and on the differences between formal and informal capitals, James Amelang, "Comparing Cities: A Barcelona Model?" Urban History, 34, no. 2 (2007): 173-89, is particularly interesting.
24.
Memorial dirigido a Felipe II sobre las obras de la Villa de Madrid, Archivo General de Simancas, Casa y Sitios Reales, leg. 247-1, fol. 257. For interesting discussions of this document, see Alfredo Alvar, El nacimiento de una capital europea. Madrid entre 1561 y 1606 (Madrid, 1989), 192-98; Javier Rivera, Juan Bautista de Toledo y Felipe II (la implantación del clasicismo en España) (Valladolid, Spain, 1984), 328-34.
25.
The ordenanza was a particular type of bylaw.
26.
On the living conditions in the Madrid of the times, in addition to the studies cited, the following are of interest: Alfredo Alvar, Felipe II, la Corte y Madrid en 1561 (Madrid, 1985); and Michel Cavillac, "Pobres y picaros en tiempos de Guzman de Alfarache: Cristóbal Pérez de Herrera y Mateo Alemán," Torre de los Lujanes 51 (2003): 15-30. Miguel Moray and Bernardo García, eds., El Madrid de Velázquez y Calderón. Villa y Corte en el siglo XVII (Madrid, 2001). A vital source, of course, is the work of Luis Cabrera de Córdoba (1559-1623). Cabrera de Córdoba was better known as a historian of Philip II, but he also wrote a chronicle that faithfully reflected events at the turn of the century. The manuscript, written from the author’s notes, dates from 1626 but, for a variety of reasons, was not published until the nineteenth century, by express order of Isabel II: Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las cosas sucedidas en la Corte de España desde 1599 hasta 1614 (Madrid, 1857). The history of this text is described in detail in Ricardo García Cárcel, "Prefacio," in Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones de las cosas sucedidas en la Corte de España desde 1599 hasta 1614 (1857) (Salamanca, Spain, 1997), 9-42.
27.
Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones, 81. Cavillac, "Pobres y picaros," also describes the importance of this sector of the population.
28.
Alvar, Los traslados, 38.
29.
Rubí de Bracamonte, La Villa de Madrid representta al Rey Nuestro Señor Don Phelipe Tercero los yncombenientes que ressulttarian de mudarse la Corte a la ciudad de Valladolid (Madrid, 1600), Biblioteca Nacional de España, ms. 11317/32. On this document, see Alvar, El nacimiento, 281.
30.
Hernando Maldonado de Matute, Memorial y discurso, que la Villa de Madrid dio al Rey D. Felipe III, nuestro señor, sobre la mudanza de la Corte (Madrid, ca. 1600), Real Academia de Historia, Colección Jesuitas, 9-17-8, 366.
31.
Alvar, Los traslados, 54.
32.
Though the work is undated, it appears to have been written around 1605. Juan de Xerez and Lope de Deça, Razón de Corte (Madrid, ca. 1605), Biblioteca Nacional de España, ms. 6549. There is a contemporary edition with notes and an introductory study by Antonio Reguera Rodríguez (León, Spain, 2001).
33.
Traza para fundar una Corte Real, Biblioteca Nacional de España, ms. 9669.
34.
Agustín Rojas Villandrado, El buen repúblico (Salamanca, Spain, 1611).
35.
This is not the place to reflect on the conception of Spain at that time. However, to understand the social reality and the development of the cities and activities of a markedly bourgeois nature, the following works are interesting: Huguette et Pierre Chaunu, Séville et l’Atlantique, 1504-1650 (Paris, 1955-1959), vol. 8, 64-65; Maravall, Estado moderno, vol. 2, 291; Bartolomé Bennassar, Un siècle d’or espagnol (vers 1521-vers 1648) (Paris, 1982). For urban aspects, see Martín, España, 42. A summary can be found in Pedro Fraile, "The Emergence of Spaces of Control in Early Commercial Capitalism: The Casas de Misericordia in Sixteenth Century Spain," Urban History 31, no. 3 (2004): 307-28.
36.
On municipal power under the Crown of Castile, see Ángeles Hijano Pérez, El pequeño poder: El municipio en la Corona de Castilla (siglos XV al XIX) (Madrid, 1992).
37.
Maravall, Estado moderno, vol. 2, 291.
38.
The importance of these changes and their influence on Pérez de Herrera’s proposals are very well explained in Cavillac, "Introducción," l-li. In general, on the question of the validos and the differences in their policies, see José Antonio Escudero, ed., Los validos (Madrid, 2004).
39.
These events and other important matters related to the change of the capital city are well explained in Alvar, Los traslados; Alvar, El nacimiento; Cabrera de Córdoba, Relaciones.
40.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la católica y Real Majestad el Rey Don Felipe II, 11-25.
41.
As we have said, Maravall writes with great insight on this emerging ideology, which faced a great many difficulties: Maravall, Estado moderno, vol. 2, 292. Cavillac also mentions this new mentality and a reformist group in Madrid, of which he says Pérez de Herrera was a member: Cavillac, "Introducción," xlviii.
42.
On Giginta’s proposals and the influence of the debate between the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, see Pedro Fraile, El vigilante de la atalaya. La génesis de los espacios de control en los albores del capitalismo (Lleida, Spain, 2005). This debate also touched on issues such as conceptions of the work ethic and leisure. The works of Erasmus also had a profound influence on matters related to the governance of cities. On Erasmus of Rotterdam, see the classic Marcel Bataillon, Erasme et l’Espagne (Paris, 1937).
43.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad el Rey Don Felipe II, 6.
44.
On this question, see Jesús Escobar, The Plaza Mayor and the Shaping of Baroque Madrid (Cambridge, UK, 2003), chap. 3.
45.
On the Maestri di Strade, see Joseph Connors, "Alliance and Enmity in Roman Baroque Urbanism,"Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana25 (1989): 208-94.
46.
This translation is Baron von Bielfeld, Instituciones políticas, trans. Domingo de la Torre y Mollinedo (Madrid, 1767-1781), 5 vols.
47.
An interesting summary of the life and work of Nicolas Delamare was written by his assistant Le Clerc du Brillet, who in fact wrote the last volume of the Traité on the basis of Delamare’s materials. This is included in the fourth volume of his treatise. Le Clerc du Brillet, "Éloge de Ms. De la Mare," in Delamare, Traité de la Police, vol. 4.
48.
On the urban transformations of Paris at the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, and on their relation to the plans for a new model of the state, see Hillary Ballon, The Paris of Henri IV. Architecture and Urbanism (Cambridge, UK, 1991).
49.
On this question, see Fraile, La otra ciudad, esp. chap. 1.
50.
de la Moignon’s project was truly ambitious; in fact, in many areas, de la Moignon rivaled Colbert himself. This commission bears witness to the importance of our author. The study was to be the basis of the regulations for public administration and specifically in urban management. What is more, the commission came from the highest level, the Parliament of Paris.
51.
On de la Reynie and his relations with Delamare, see Éric Le Nabour, La Reynie. Le policier de Louis XIV (Paris, 1991)
52.
Pierre Lavedan , Histoire de l’urbanisme (II). Renaissance et temps modernes (Paris, 1941), 202-204.
53.
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Manuscripts, Fr. 21.545-21.808.
54.
On the recovery of the classics and their influence on treatises on the city, Quesada, La idea, is particularly interesting, esp. chap. 2.
55.
The term is used in the sense of the city seen as a collective unit, as Kagan explains in Urban Images.
56.
Antonio Bonet Correa, dir., Bibliografía de arquitectura, ingeniería y urbanismo en España (1498-1880) ( Madrid, 1980), 2 vols.
57.
Naturally, the documents we quote from are written in the Spanish and French of the time, and so on occasion our translation into English is quite free. In some places we have added clarifications in brackets inside the quotations.
58.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe II, 24.
59.
The idea expressed by Pérez de Herrera was also quite widespread in the France of his times, and it is this tradition that Delamare draws on in his treatise. On mercantilist and public works strategies in Paris, see Ballon, Paris of Henri IV, 4-7.
60.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe II, 11 reverse.
61.
Ibid., 17-17 reverse.
62.
Alvar, El nacimiento, 198. Also see Francisco Iñiguez Almech, "Juan de Herrera y las reformas en el Madrid de Felipe II," Revista de la Biblioteca, Archivo y Museo del Ayuntamiento de Madrid, 59-60, 1950, 5-108; Francisco Iñiguez Almech, "Límites y ordenanzas de 1567 para la Villa de Madrid," Revista de la Biblioteca, Archivo y Museo del Ayuntamiento de Madrid, 69, 1955, 3-37.
63.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe II, 12 reverse-13. The "casas a la malicia" (or "spite houses") were ramshackle houses built to avoid an obligation imposed by the king on the inhabitants of Madrid, who had to provide lodging for lords (and their retinue) visiting the court. These visits could last for years.
64.
For example, the Maestri di Strade in Rome had also controlled the issue of building licenses, although in this case the object was to oversee the embellishment and growth of the city rather than the surveillance of the population advocated by Pérez de Herrera. Connors, "Alliance and Enmity," 214.
65.
Delamare, Traité de la Police, T. I, 87.
66.
Ibid., T. I, 88-89.
67.
Another factor was the fear of the transmission of illness among a relatively unsupervised population. This fear was the reason for many of the policies concerning the poor introduced by European cities and urban plans such as the Casa de Misericordia proposed by Pérez de Herrera or the Hôpital de Saint Louis mentioned above. On the latter, see Ballon, Paris of Henri IV, chap. 4.
68.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe III, 4-4 reverse.
69.
Delamare, Traité de la Police, T. I, 91.
70.
Ibid., T. I, 91-92.
71.
Ibid., T. I, 92-93.
72.
Pérez de Herrera, Amparo de pobres, 193.
73.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe II, 16 reverse-17.
74.
On this point, and especially its relation with the idea of the city, see Fraile, El vigilante, chap. 6.
75.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe II, 4-4 reverse.
76.
Carmen Gavira , Miradas desde la ingeniería. Redes e infraestructuras en Madrid (Madrid, 1996).
77.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe III, 20 reverse-21 reverse.
78.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe II, 6.
79.
Delamare, Traité de la Police, T. IV, 10.
80.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe III, 4 reverse-5.
81.
Delamare, Traité de la Police, T. IV, 347.
82.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe III, 6 reverse.
83.
Delamare, Traité de la Police, T. I, 182.
84.
The concept appears in many of Foucault’s works, for instance Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir (Paris, 1975). We refer to the Spanish edition, Michel Foucault, Vigilar y castigar (Madrid, 1978), 153-166.
85.
On this point, see Pedro Fraile, "Lograr obediencias maquinales. Un proyecto espacial," in Horacio Capel, ed., Los espacios acotados. Geografía y dominación social ( Barcelona, 1990), 13-39. This idea is repeated in all of Bentham’s works and in the writers who spread Bentham’s thought in Spain, e.g., Esteban Dumont, Tratados de legislación civil y penal. Obra sacada de los manuscritos de J. Bentham (Madrid, 1822).
86.
Pérez de Herrera, Discurso a la Católica y Real Majestad del Rey Don Felipe III, 22.
