This mockup was already exhibited in the MuVIM 11 years ago, from March 2003 to mid 2004. For some time now, its director, Rafael Company, has worked to bring it back and from next July 12, visitors will be able to enjoy it and discover once more how it was the vegetable production area and the urban planning of Valencia in the XVIII century, a city which barely reached 45.000 inhabitants.

The miniature is a craft work led by Vicente Herraíz and Lucas Gómez’s studio (who worked on the project more than 100.000 hours). The model was designed on a 1:500 scale and built with polychromatic, wood and plastic materials. Every building in the city, including 50.000 trees and 450 house blocks, has been carved and painted by hand.

The Unit of Documentation of the Diputació de València, then managed by Fernando Muñoz Nebot, provided the required iconography, cartographic material and literature of the XVIII century, which was mainly from Marcos Antonio d’Orellana and the chroniclers Teixidor and Vicente Boix.

The original hand-drawn map was finished by Priest Tosca in 1704 (nearly a full century after the one drawn up by Antonio Mancelli in 1608, with more schematic outlines) and is currently preserved and exhibited at the Local History Museum.  Around 1738, once Tosca had passed away, a reduced engraved version of his map was edited at the local printer Antonio Bordázar d’Artazu printing house.

The director Rafael Company has reinstated the model with the aim of giving back to the MuVIM its identity as a “museum of ideas”, an identity that along with new exhibition proposals and continuous renewal is becoming a strong reality.

On the model visitors can see an unrecognizable St. Agustí Church because it was destroyed and rebuilt in a completely different way. A Royal Palace destroyed by Napoleon. A Monastery of St. Pio V without a dome. The Tower of Temple on which Muslims hoisted the banner announcing King Jaume I the Christian conquest of the city or a Palau of Generalitat with a single tower, as the second one was built during the 50s of the XX century.