Los "Apuntamientos" del Padre Martín Sarmiento sobre la construcción de la Red Radial de Caminos Reales en España

Zusammenfassung

The Borbones dynasty aims at inserting a centralised estate and government in Spain. There will be many consequences in the field of the territorial policy; however the access roads, in particular the Royal roads will be the ackbone of the new territorial plan. Most of the numerous contributions, which come after the theoretic and practical study of the roads, stress on the arbitristas solutions. One of such studies, done in 1757 and entrusted to father Martín Sarmiento by Conde Aranda, shows several interesting issues. Firstly, the demarcation line of the royal roads, coded with strict geometric resolutions, becomes the pattern which is going to determine the terrestrial communications radial network in Spain for the two last centuries. Secondly, during the 18th century, the proposed layouts, though optional and consistent with the model of a central government, test the development and debating of various sciences such as mathematics, geometry, astronomy, mathematical geography or geodesy... Today we know that Father Martín Sarmiento was a pioneer in the Introduction of Newton in Spain [Llull n. 39]. These Apuntamientos (notes) not only don't fall behind its author's attitude of scientific vanguard but also support it. Finally, the road plan does not mean only a very important section in the policy of the town and country planning, which would be relevant enough. The autor uses the itinerant element as the hinge of a global planning, in which other activities and plannings such as agriculture, repopulation, afforestation, urban development, trade or industry take part. From this point of view, Martín Sarmiento not only displays a stylishly geometric coded discourse, but also lays the foundations of the macro territorial plan which the enlightened despo- tism will try to apply during the second half of the 18th century: new infrastructures of communication -roads-, new resources of production of wealth -hydraulic works-, new plans of socio-spatial organisation -repopulations-... The groundwork was done with the sentence useful roads for everyone and for all purposes, which allowed to develop the named elements of a happy estate, people, stock, agricultural products and plots.