Paisaje y sociedad de alta montaña en "De Madrid a Nápoles" (1861) de Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

The passage from De Madrid a Nápoles (1861) in which Pedro Antonio de Alarcón describes the alpine landscape is a relevant document, as it contains the first detailed depiction of Mont Blanc’s range that we come across in the history of Spanish travel literature. In the text, Alarcón sets an archaic lifestyle ideal against material progress linked to the birth of the modern metropolis under industrial revolution. This outlook anticipates the strong conservative attitude towards social changes that will increasingly be adopted by the Spanish writer in the last years of his life. From this alpine description emerge distinctive romantic clichés associated with an aesthetic dear to Alarcón that unexpectedly blend with a religious vision of nature. Furthermore, we analize the role of Bædeker’s travel guide book on Switzerland (whose 4th edition, published in 1859, is well known to Alarcón) and the traces it has left in this extensive passage.