ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the figure of architecture presenting to Spain the image and plan of ancient architecture according to rules of Vitruvius. The Vitruvius emerged in eighteenth-century Spain as central concern of the new Bourbon monarchs who were intent on shaping Spanish society and culture away from the previous Hapsburg dynasty into more national and monarchical sensibility, as well as in intellectual circles where Vitruvian theory continued to resonate as ideal. The aim of developing a new comprehensive treatise on architecture fit in well with the interests of the Madrid Academy, who at that time was still seeking definitive course on architecture. As the author have tried to demonstrate, Italian influence on Spain's architecture in early eighteenth-century was tied to very powerful Spanish artistic and cultural traditions. The celebrations in Spain and Italy surrounding the Bourbon succession, as well as many built and ephemeral projects that followed Philip V's rise, reveal how early eighteenth-century architecture could be so symbolically charged.
