Historical Archive of the City of Barcelona

These include a range of different types of documents such as auques, art exhibition catalogues, goigs and other religious sheets, engravings, cotton prints, maps, Barcelona street maps and floor plans, playing cards and romanços.

This wide diversity of document types is organised into three sections:

Cartographic documents:

• Map: Group formed by maps of Catalonia (17th to 20th centuries) and maps of Africa, America, Asia, Europe and Oceania (18th and 19th centuries).
• Street maps, floor plans: These constitute the original core of the Department. Many of them were incorporated following the transfer of the Municipal Administrative Archives (AMA)..
  • General maps of Barcelona
  • Partial city maps
  • Private building floor plans (basically 19th century)
  • Public building floor plans (basically 19th century)
  • Religious building floor plans (basically 19th century)
  • Large legacies (Ildefons Cerdà)
  • Projects not carried out. Various authors (19th and 20th centuries)
     

Iconographic documents::

• Auques. Picture stories designed to educate the people. They consist of 48 small pictures with two lines of rhyming text that explain their meaning. Our collection includes auques published in Barcelona and Madrid. Chronology: 19th century (1850-1860).
  • Notices: about events that occurred mainly in the city of Barcelona and in other cities in Catalonia and Spain. Chronology: 20th century. Themes: anniversaries, conferences and courses, shows, exhibitions, propaganda, etc.
  • Drawings:
    • Originals by 178 artists, from 14th century.
    • Originals of cotton-print proofs that would later lead to the clothes fabrics of Catalonia’s artisans. Chronology: 18th century.
    • Originals produced by different artists for periodicals. Chronology: end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th centuries.
  • Engravings: panish and foreign prints and engravings from the 17th to 20th centuries. Some come from important donations (Eduard Toda and Agustí Massana). Subjects covered: History, iconography, clothes, religion, topography.
  • Bookplates
  • Trade marks
  • Playing cards
     

Textual documents:

• Documents with 100% text. We highlight the document fonds of Barcelona entities (20th century). They reflect the activity of some of our city institutions.
• Documents with 90% text and 10% images. Consist of a large collection of document types. Highlights:
  • Birth, marriage and death certificates, Christmas greetings, mercantile records, festival, concert and theatre programmes, amongst others.
  • Catalan popular imagery: goigs and romanços, the first religious documents in praise of God, the Virgin Mary and the Saints, from the 17th to 20th centuries. Written in verse, in Catalan and Spanish. The romanços are stories in verse about a real or imaginary event. Written in Spanish, Catalan, Mallorcan and Valencian. Chronology: 16th to 20th centuries.