Antonio de Capmany and the city of Barcelona: the value of experience in the path of progress

Abstract

In his time, Antonio de Capmany (1742-1813) was the most prominent intellectual in the service of the interests of Barcelona, in a willingness to articulate the energy of that city with the efforts of enlightened despotism to relaunch Spain as a continental and colonial power. Extensive knowledge and assimilation of European culture of the Enlightenment allowed him to associate the historical experience of the Catalan capital with modern values. It was not a simple varnish, since the defense of Barcelona as the focus of progress was constructed from documented empirical data and sensory impressions, according to the principles preached by the great British philosophers against speculative rationalism and its incessant occurrences.

Keywords

• antonio de capmany
• barcelona
• empirismo
• progreso
• gremios
• arquitectura gótica.