Of the several publications inspired by the 1959 centennial of the death of Agustín Codazzi, this handsome collection of his works is probably the most notable. Codazzi (1793-1859) was an Italian who gave most of his life to Venezuela and Colombia as a geographer, soldier, colonizer, and administrator. The purpose of Obras escogidas was to gather together all of Codazzi’s available writings dealing with Venezuela, including a number of unpublished documents. The collection is of value to historical geographers interested in the landscape and changing land use as well as to historians interested in the post-independence period in Venezuela.
Eight titles are included in the two volumes. Most important is the Resumen de la geografía de Venezuela, previously published in 1841 and 1940, which fills Volume One. This is an encyclopedic study of the physical, economic, social, and regional geography of Venezuela. Codazzi’s “La cueva del Guáchara” appears in an appendix. Volume Two contains “Textos del atlas físico y politico de la República de Venezuela,” “Catecismo de la geografía de Venezuela,” “Documentos e informes relativos a la elaboración de la geografía y el atlas,” “La Colonia Tovar,” “La Academia de Matemáticas” (documents), “La gobernación de Barinas,” and “Honras fúnebres a Bolívar.” The “Gobernación de Barinas” is an especially valuable inclusion because of the previous unavailability of most of the material. It consists of two “Informes” and several documents written by Codazzi while he was governor of Barinas in 1846 and 1847. Good accounts are given of the history of Barinas, health problems, crops, cattle ranching, economic potential, commerce, roads and ports, social conditions, etc.; also the need for a land classification is stressed as essential for the development of the province. In the first “Informe” Codazzi expresses his belief that the wars for independence were beneficial to Barinas by destroying large land holdings and making possible a more equal distribution of land and wealth.
In Volume One there is a short biography of Codazzi by Enrique Bernardo Núñez, and the editorial foreword by Pedro Grases has a useful bibliography of works pertaining to Codazzi. Only a few plates are included, the most important being three maps from Codazzi’s Atlas físico y político de la República de Venezuela published in Paris in 1841. It is unfortunate that reproductions of all the maps of this rare atlas could not have been included.
