ABSTRACT
Paper means to set and clarify the roll of Don Eduardo de Saavedra as the precedent of the methodological and scientific study of the Roman Roads in Spain. His widely humanistic and engineering condition contributed significantly to promoting the study of Roman Roads from a multidisciplinary point of view. The work shows a complete vision of the study of these Roman engineering works in Spain, reflecting on the importance of their examination to base the young civil engineering as opposed to the military and architecture, and their situation nowadays, where their study remains a reference for the idiosyncrasy of the ingeniero de caminos or civil engineer.The paper reveals, compiles and analyses the historical environment lived by Eduardo Saavedra that push him to understand the roots of the technical humanism of his time, which leads on the one hand to the search for the Roman roots of engineering and, on the other, to the consolidation of civil engineering as opposed to the military one.
