A Town Through History

This is a visual tour de force - tracing the growth of a 'Mediterranean' town from its beginnings as a fortified village in the 4th century B.C. through Roman, medieval, Renaissance and industrial development to modern times. The fascination lies in its fourteen large double-page spreads depicting these changes in meticulous detail: from wooded hilly landscape to overcrowded metropolis stretching into the foothills and to the distant seashore. Great public buildings survive through the ages (medieval town hall, Gothic cathedral, Renaissance church - with its piazza occupying the site of the earlier Roman amphitheatre). For the patient observer there are an infinite number of discoveries to be made: an inner ring road that traces the path of the medieval city walls (passing glass-clad office blocks and a late 19th-century railway station) or the remaining fragment of the Roman aqueduct ruined by the Barbarians in the 6th century and finally restored in the 20th century.

On alternate double-page openings there is a commentary on the period, outlining major social, economic and political factors that influenced the town's development and a miniature of the preceding picture which identifies significant new buildings and explains each in a caption. Finally, there are cut-away drawings of characteristic buildings showing how people lived and worked or how buildings were constructed. An enormous amount of information is packed into these pages giving a surprising depth and coherence to the story of the town's development - it is only the occasional reference to the political context that defies compression and will sometimes baffle the reader.

Inevitably there will be comparisons with David Macaulay's City, Cathedral and Castle which look more closely at a narrowly defined subject. Though they lack the strength and atmosphere of some of Macaulay's most memorable work, Jordi Ballonga's illustrations are just as assured and his meticulous linear style produces sweeping panoramas of amazing detail and clarity. The text is clear but purely 'functional' and has none of the individual character of Macaulay's more leisurely narrative style.

Wayland are to be congratulated on buying in this book from its Italian publishers - but I find it astonishing that their editor could tell me absolutely nothing about the authors or illustrator.