A good monograph on the city of Cartagena in the sixteenth century would be most welcome to historians, but despite its title, this volume does not fill the need. During the Middle Ages and the early modern era Cartagena was one of Spain’s principal Mediterranean ports. Much of its trade was controlled by Genoese merchants who had established themselves in the city as early as the thirteenth century, and who were originally attracted to this area because of its lead, salt, and alum deposits. In the sixteenth century Cartagena served as an outlet for Castilian wool exported to Italy and as a port of entry for the products of Italian industry on their way to Madrid.
There is little indication of Cartagena’s commercial importance, however, in this volume by Alberto Colao. What we do have is a series of impressionistic comments based on the writings of two contemporaries—Fray Gerónimo Hurtado and the humanist Francisco Cascales. There are also a few pages in the form of an epilogue devoted to six lines from Cervantes’ Viaje del Parnaso, in which Cartagena is mentioned, but they are purely subjective and of no value historically. The selections from Hurtado and Cascales, while interesting and informative in themselves, have not been subjected to critical analysis by the author. Most have been taken out of context, and he has made no attempt to relate them. Instead the book is full of vague references, anecdotes, and even poems, all eulogistic. What finally emerges from all of this is nothing more than a shadowy idea of Cartagena’s physical environment and the surrounding countryside. It is clear that local pride and patriotism influenced the author to write this book. Such sentiments are certainly above criticism, but from the standpoint of twentieth-century historical writing, this volume is an anomaly.
