Note 82 — VI SPANISH CITIES

Yet those who connect Barcelona with the smoke and gloom of an industrial city, having heard it spoken of as the Manchester of Spain, are mistaken. Barcelona is still worthy of the praise of the Venetian ambassador in the sixteenth century, who called it a “bellissima città,” with “copia di giardini bellisimi,” and of the praises of Cervantes in “Don Quixote,” and in “Las Dos Doncellas,” where it is the “flower of the beautiful cities of the world and an honour to Spain.”