Cover of the work report Histórica del Canal de Aragón: Noticia de las utilidades que produce, y esplicación de lo que contienen las láminas que se publican. BNE.

Henri Pierre Léon Pharamond Blanchard (Lyon, 1805-Paris, 1873) was a painter of history, genre scenes, portraits, landscapes, lithographer and illustrator. In 1819 he entered the School of Fine Arts, where he was a disciple of the engraver C. Chasselat and the painter A. Gros. In 1825 he traveled to Madrid called by José de Madrazo to be part of the group of foreign lithographers in charge of the lithographic collection of paintings of the King. During his stay in the capital he obtained clientele as a watercolorist and portraitist, probably due to the protection of the Infante Francisco de Paula, painter and academician of San Fernando. In 1834 he presented the canvas Corrida de toros at the Paris Salon and the following year he returned to Spain as an expert and interpreter for Baron Taylor, to create a gallery of Spanish paintings destined for the Louvre.

During his stay in Spain he carried out an important production in the Royal Lithographic Establishment, making great issue of prints for the lithographic Collection of pictures of the King of Spain Fernando VII; 38 lithographs for the report Historical of the Canal of Aragon; 5 lithographs published on the occasion of the swearing in of Isabel II (1833); as well as Prints for The Artist, 1834-1836, or Prints for Sevillian Album by Vicente Mamerto Casajús, 1838, among many other works.

The work of the French artist and lithographer is of particular interest to us because of the 38 lithographs he made for the book report Histórica del Canal de Aragón: Noticia de las utilidades que produce, y esplicación de lo que contienen las láminas que se publican, published in Madrid in June 1833 in the printing house of D. J. Palacios. A work of great interest, without accredited specialization of its author, but that could be himself or more probably taken from the work of the Count of Sástago, Vicente Fernández de Córdoba y Alagón, who on the death of Pignatelli assumed the position of protector of the Canal Imperial de Aragón and the Real de Tauste, He had published in 1796 his Descripción de los Canales Imperial de Aragón y Real de Tauste, the first work of synthesis on the Canal, since he directly consulted all the original documentation from the time of the Compañía de Badín, as well as the memoirs written by Pignatelli; he himself described himself as a "....a faithful compiler of the writings of my predecessor".

Regarding the work that concerns us, report Histórica del Canal de Aragón: Noticia de las utilidades que produce, y esplicación de lo que contienen las láminas que se publican, the meticulous description of the Canal works and the multitude of precise details and data , as well as the clarity of the plates that accompany the text and its historical proximity to development of the works, make this book a document of inestimable value, as pointed out by A. de Las Casas Gómez and A. Vázquez de La Cueva.

Prior to this publication, Paseo pintoresco por el Canal Imperial de Aragón, or a collection of views of the Canal, had been published by order of King Ferdinand VII. These were booklets with good quality lithographs with various views of the Canal, accompanied by a historical report that was sent by subscription; that is, first the booklets were published, which later became the book report Histórica del Canal de Aragón: Noticia de las utilidades que produce, y esplicación de lo que contienen las láminas que se publican.

Of the 38 lithographs made on the Imperial Canal of Aragon, 17 of them correspond to Navarre (numbers 1 to 16 and issue 19). They are the following images: 1. View of the Palace called de Compuertas, taken from Medio Día. 2. Formigales Bridge seen from the north side and Almenara de San Carlos Borromeo. 3. Bridge of Formigales, taken from in front of the inn. 4. View of the Palace of Carlos V taken from the river. 5. View of the house called "Casa de los Patrones" taken from the river. 6. View of the dam taken from the river. 7. Houses of the employees, seen from the Almenara de San Carlos Borromeo. 8. Site where SS. MM. near the house of Compuertas. 9. Posada del Bocal taken from the right bank of the Canal. 10. The old storeroom and the oven at El Bocal. 11. Compuertas house taken from the north side. 12. The Old Palace wharf and the Cura's House. 13. View of the Palace of Carlos V taken from in front of the church. 14. View of the Casa de Compuertas taken from the West. 15. View of the main façade of the Palace of Carlos V. 16. View of the church of El Bocal. 19. View of the Casa de Compuertas del Real Bocal taken from the Levante side.

At the bottom of each plate, there is a legend on the left that reads, "F. Blanchard drew and lithographed it". Blanchard drew and lithographed it", and to the right in another legend with abbreviations, "Est. en el Real Establecimiento Litográfico de Madrid". Probably, the reason that led the Canal Company to print its report in Madrid would be none other than the fact that the lithographic establishment was in that capital. It was founded in 1825 with the purpose of publishing the collection of paintings of Ferdinand VII and was installed in the recently founded Royal Museum of Paintings, currently the Prado Museum. Its director, the painter José de Madrazo, presented the king with a new engraving technique, lithography, which he had learned about during his stay in Paris, and as the king liked it, the Royal Lithographic Establishment went ahead. In its beginnings it had foreign engravers, among them Léon Pharamond Blanchard.

In the present work we have used the digitalization of the work report Histórica del Canal de Aragón: Noticia de las utilidades que produce, y esplicación de lo que contienen las láminas que se publican de la Library Services Nacional de España (BNE).

1. From the Acequia Imperial to the Imperial Canal

The Imperial Canal of Aragon is one of the most important hydraulic engineering works carried out in Europe during the 18th century. Initially conceived as an Imperial Canal promoted by Charles V, designed and built between 1529 and 1539 by Gil de Morlanes, it was business of large dimensions. The water was taken from Fontellas and had a diagonal ashlar dam, a gate house over four mouths or Palace of Charles V, dwellings, warehouses, a long canal of variable dimensions and leveling, bridges, drainage beacons and a siphon with an ashlar vault to cross the great obstacle of the Jalón River, where the water crossed the river subway. The irrigation channel then continued through the town of Alagón, up to the plains of Pinseque and part of Garrapinillos, in Zaragoza, and did not go beyond this area.

After several problems generated in the Acequia such as the breakage of the dam by a great flood of the Ebro River in 1722, leaving it out of service, difficulties in the leasing of water or technical failures in the construction, in 1738 the old Acequia Imperial became the instrument of a much more ambitious goal : the project of a navigable canal as part of a navigation system that would link the Ebro basin with the Mediterranean. Thus, the task of reconstruction and transformation of the Acequia Imperial into an Imperial Canal was the most important hydraulic and engineering work undertaken by the Enlightenment monarchy in the second half of the 18th century, business which responds to the public works policy undertaken by the State.

Aerial view of El Bocal de Fontellas with the Ebro river, the dam and the Casa de Compuertas. Photo Blanca Aldanondo. Newspaper of Navarre.

The project starts on the right bank of the Ebro, in El Bocal, located in the municipality of Fontellas, about 7 km downstream from Tudela. From there it follows a trajectory practically parallel to the river through the municipalities of Fontellas, Ribaforada, Buñuel and Cortes; and now within Aragón, it reaches Fuentes de Ebro, where its 110 km route ends, after having overcome a 125 m difference in level and channeled a flow of between 25 and 30 m³/s, which allows the irrigation of more than 25,000 hectares and water supply.

The actions aimed at its rehabilitation culminated in the construction of the new canal in such a way that the project that in 1745 had been presented by B. Lana and S. Rodolphe for the reconstruction of the ditch as an irrigation and navigation canal was taken up again in 1757. After various projects such as that of A. Badin and C. J. Krayenhoff, the appointment of the Zaragoza canon Ramón de Pignatelli as protector of the Canal in 1772, with the support of the Count of Aranda, gave a radical change of direction to project. An energetic and efficient manager, he hired the French engineer Gil Pin, director of the Languedoc Canal, to supervise the work.

On his return to France, the military engineer Julián Sánchez Bort, author of the definitive project of the aqueduct over the Jalón, and the engineer Joaquín Villanova, Pignatelli's trusted man who substituted Sánchez Bort in his absences, remained as technical director . Pignatelli acquired great knowledge of hydraulic engineering and formed a team of technicians who carried out his ideas and projects, who executed the detailed plans and buildings. The most outstanding members of this team were the architect Gregorio Sevilla and Fernando Martínez Corcín, who succeeded the previous one in 1782.

As J. M. Torres Pérez mentions Julián Sánchez Bort (1725-1781), we should consider him as the engineer who knew how to take up the best solutions and elements contributed by the engineers who preceded him in this business. De A. Badin incorporated the idea of the aqueduct; the project of Lana and Rodolphe served him to conduct the watercourse along the course of the old Acequia Imperial; the weir built by Gil de Morlanes was designed to support his dam; and the project of Kraijenhoff served him as a guide to trace the extension of the Canal.

The works of the Imperial Canal are a great achievement of Spanish hydraulic engineering during the reign of Charles III and constituted a magnificent example of the intervention of the military engineers who took model from the Languedoc Canal.

The Bocal de Fontellas. House of Compuertas.
 

2. Buildings and hydraulic installations in Navarra

In the area known as El Bocal Real in the municipality of Fontellas, where the Canal Imperial has its origin, there is a group of important constructions located within the limits of Navarre, among them the Pignatelli Dam or main dam, perpendicular to the Ebro River in order to divert its waters to the Canal bed. More than 1,500 people worked on the construction of the dam, which is 233.88 m long, 34.1 m wide and 4.62 m high. It is a gravity dam with a grid of wooden piles, forming a grid, and a mortar filling; the body of the dam, made of concrete with lime mortar and lined with ashlars, is built on this foundation.

Also noteworthy is the Gatehouse, designed by Gregorio Sevilla y Pignatelli in 1778 and built between 1780 and 1787, located at one end of the dam. Under it, the waters of the Ebro flow into the Canal through eleven openings 1.67 m wide and 2.22 m high, each with its corresponding floodgate. Pignatelli built this house using plans by L. Chimioni and F. Martínez Corcín, although he made important modifications, such as adding a third floor.

In 1873, a great flood caused the dam to burst and caused serious damage to the building, forcing a major repair carried out by M. Royo y Urieta, director of the Canal for years, introducing changes such as the removal of the staircase of the south end and the construction of a brick tower that concealed a new water tank.

Located downstream of the Pignatelli Dam, we find the Charles V Dam, the beginning of the primitive Imperial Canal built by Gil Morlanes around 1530. Located obliquely to the Ebro riverbed, it has a straight plan with a height of 3.50 m and a length of 338 meters. With a construction system similar to that of Pignatelli, currently only some remains are preserved, such as the body of the lime concrete dam and some ashlars of the crest. Between the two dams, on the left bank of the river, there is a distance of barely 500 m. When Pignatelli became position of the works of the Canal, the general opinion of the engineers was to destroy this old dam and use its material in the construction of the new one, which was not carried out and was a success.

The Palace of Carlos V was also built by Gil Morlanes in the 16th century, although it has undergone successive alterations. It is possible that the last of them was made by M. Royo after the damage caused by the great flood of 1873, with the construction of a new facade, with a porch on the floor leave and a glazed gallery on the main floor. It is currently surrounded by a garden with curious botanical species and next to it is the eighteenth-century church of San Carlos Borromeo. In addition, between the Palace and the Canal, a settlement was built to house the maintenance workers, and there was also an inn for travelers using the canal.

Current image of the Neoclassical chapel of San Carlos Borromeo.

Structures of great interest, as well as being important and necessary elements in the canal, are the bridges that cross its course and that were built at the same time as the construction work. One of them, located in Navarra at entrance of El Bocal, is the Formigales Bridge, of good invoice and well preserved. It was built entirely of limestone and has a lowered vault, horizontal level and a Y-shaped floor plan to save, at one end, the drainage of the San Carlos beacon that is attached to it. As A. de Las Casas and A. Vázquez point out, the Count of Sástago said that "from the Formigales Bridge, looking up to the Casa de Compuertas called San Carlos, it is the most beautiful viewpoint in the whole Canal".

The second of the Navarrese bridges, recently restored by the Historical Heritage Service of the Government of Navarre, is the Cortes Bridge, although there were others such as the Ribaforada and Buñuel bridges that have already disappeared. This hydraulic work, dated around 1796 when the work on the Imperial Canal was being completed, is the only one of its type -with an arch, brick and ashlar stone parapets- still standing. Only five others, of a different type, remain intact on the canal. These are the Formigales Bridge, in Fontellas; Valverde, in Mallén; Acequia de Pedrola, in Ribera de Jalón; Clavería in Garrapinillos; and the Almenara de Casablanca, in Zaragoza.

With respect to the works that were built along the entire route, it is interesting to note, as mentioned by De Las Casas and Vázquez, that they were of great variety and complexity, attending to the diverse uses and needs generated by a business of these characteristics. In the Canal one can find dams, gate houses, locks, beacons, bridges, aqueducts, culverts, roads, mills, fulling mills, waterwheels, docks, piers, inns, warehouses, houses, hospitals, schools, the beautiful neoclassical church dedicated to San Carlos Borromeo and even a small theater for the entertainment of those who worked there; that is to say, it included all the elements to facilitate the life of its inhabitants.

In 1985 it was integrated, with all its heritage, into the Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro, the organization currently in charge of its management. Currently, the Palace of Charles V is surrounded by beautiful gardens that include the so-called "Carlos labyrinth", which exceeds 1700 m², and a large oak tree over 30 m high, a possible witness to the birth of the Imperial Canal, so that the village of El Bocal is an interesting environment from various points of view such as landscape, architectural, historical, hydraulic ..., which since 2004 has earned it the declaration of Cultural Interest.

This virtual visit presents 18 lithographs of the Canal Imperial de Aragón in its Navarre section. The texts that accompany them are those made by the author himself who drew them in the work report Histórica del Canal de Aragón: Noticia de las utilidades que produce, and explanation of what is contained in the plates that are published, since they are sufficiently clear and explanatory of the content. Other details of the various buildings are given in the initial section of this presentation: "The Imperial Canal. Construction and hydraulic installations in Navarre".
 

Plate I. View of the Palace called de Compuertas, taken from Medio Día. The view of the side of the new Palace, called of Compuertas, under which the waters of the river Ebro enter the Canal. There is a magnificent stairway to go up to the said Palace, whose view is turned from noon, having to its right the Ebro River and to its left, the bank of the Canal, all surrounded by large groves of trees.
 

Plate II. Bridge of Formigales seen by the part of the north and Almenara de San Carlos Borromeo. View of a piece of wall adjacent to the bridge called Formigales, taken from the north side, below the Almenara de San Carlos Borromeo, which is the first drainage or sluice that has the Canal to the Ebro River, through the arch that is described below the said wall. To the right and left of this site there are many groves of trees, which form a pleasant perspective.
 

Plate III. Formigales Bridge, taken from in front of the inn. The view of the Formigales Bridge taken from the inn of El Bocal. This bridge is the first one that the Canal has in all its course: it is built of ashlar stone and through it passes the royal road to Tudela and the other towns of Aragón and Navarra. You can see the entire course of the Canal and to the left, the Almenara de San Carlos and the arch of the bridge through which the horses that drive the boats pass.
 

Plate IV. View of the Palace of Carlos V taken from the river. View of the Palace of Charles V, taken from the river on the north side. Its façade represents an addition to the old building, made entirely of masonry, the latter being made of brick.
 

Plate V. View of the Casa de los Patrones taken from the river. View of the Ebro River and its right bank; behind the Canal; and in between the two are represented the houses called the Patrons, which were built when the works of El Bocal and the Dam were being done, and served for the habitation of the skippers of the boats, and other workers who worked on these works; and today they are inhabited by fishermen who have leased the fishing of the river.
 

Plate VI. View of the dam taken from the river. View of the great wall built on the left bank of the Ebro River, on top of the dam, with which it forms a right angle. This work was built to contain the waters of the river, which, due to a furious flood that occurred when the dam was being built, broke at that point, diverting them from their natural course. Mr. Pignatelli built it out of ashlar stone, at great expense, securing it on its back with terrible buttresses and abutments for greater firmness and safety.
 

Plate VII. Houses of the employees, seen from the Almenara de San Carlos Borromeo. View of the houses of the employees who live in El Bocal, of the public inn, and of the warehouses that are in this enclosure, taken from the beacon of San Carlos Borromeo.
 

Plate VIII. Site where SS. MM. disembarked near the Casa de Compuertas. View of the disembarkation of King Ferdinand VII and Queen Maria Josefa Amalia, in the month of May 1828, when they went to see the works of El Bocal, in the site next to the new Palace of Compuertas, which cannot be seen in the plate. This is King Ferdinand VII and Maria Josefa Amalia of Saxony, daughter of Prince Maximilian of Saxony and Princess Caroline of Bourbon-Parma, third wife of Ferdinand VII, who married on October 20, 1819.
 

Plate IX. Posada de El Bocal taken from the right bank of the Canal. View of the inn of El Bocal, and of the arrival of the ordinary boat at the landing stage of this site. The carriages are seen waiting for the passengers coming on the boat to take them to Tudela.
 

Plate X. The old storeroom and the oven in El Bocal. View of the Straw Storehouse and the Oven located at place of the Church of El Bocal, next to the banks of the Ebro River and the Palace of Charles V.
 

Plate XI. House of Compuertas taken from the north side. View of the side of the new Palace of Compuertas, from the North, opposite to that of Plate I. On the left side a stone arch is described, which forms a small bridge with its stairway for the passage, under which is the Lock that has the Canal for its communication with the river. Further back the wheels of the machine used to clean the beach of the river in front of the mouths of the Canal are discovered.
 

Plate XII. Wharf of the Palacio Viejo and Casa del Cura. View of a piece of the old Canal of Carlos V and its wharf next to the Palace of the same one. The house that is seen on the side is the one destined for the Cura of El Bocal, and the other buildings that are discovered are for other dependents.
 

Plate XIII. View of the Palace of Charles V taken from in front of the Church. View from one side of the Palace of Charles V and the wooden bridge for the passage of the Canal. Next to it are the wheels of the old locks that are in this Canal, according to the use of those times.
 

Plate XIV. View of the Casa de Compuertas from the west. View of the new Palacio de Compuertas, showing part of the mouths through which the river water flows into the Canal, taken from the west side from the Canal itself.
 

Plate XV. View of the main facade of the Palace of Charles V. View of the main facade of the Palace of Carlos V that faces this Canal, and in the part leave of the building the four mouths are designated by which the water of the river entered, those that today are partitioned by not making use of that channel. In the main door there is a chain that demonstrates that the King and Queen of Spain stayed in this Palace in the year 1828.
 

Plate XVI. View of the church of El Bocal. View of the Chapel of El Bocal in the act of leaving it a procession.
 

Plate XIX. House of Compuertas del Real Bocal taken from the Levante side. View of the new Palace of Compuertas del Bocal, taken from the front from the Ebro River, from the Levante side, and the mouths through which the river water enters the Canal are designated; on the left hand side is the dam and a stairway to descend to it; on the right, the arch of the lock for communication of the river with the Canal and in front is the machine used to clean the river beach, placed inside a pontoon or boat to move it to all sides, as necessary.

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