Miguel de Cervantes placed some passages of his masterpiece in Catalonia. Nevertheless, the features he uses to approach the Catalan reality -halfwaybetween 16th and 17th centuries- are obviously influenced by Don Quixote's personality. At that time, the Catalan economy was making its way in every sphere of activity which could operate at a profit. Far away from that magnificent Middle Ages, agriculture had to be rearranged and it was necessary to promote the most competitive products and to try to find markets for them. New generations devoted themselves to this purpose, people who were equally distant from the old patrician oligarchies and from the fickleness of the marginal nobility. They were laying, perhaps without knowing it, the path to modernity.

Miguel de Cervantes ubicó algunos pasajes de su obra más significativa en Cataluña. Pero los trazos con que describe la realidad catalana -a caballo de los siglos XVI y XVII- constituyen, necesariamente, una aproximación mediatizada por la personalidad de Don Quijote. La economía catalana de esta época estaba abriéndose camino en todos los ámbitos susceptibles de generar ganancias. Lejos de los esplendores de la brillante etapa medieval, era necesario reorientar la agricultura, potenciar las producciones más competitivas y buscar mercados. A ello se dedicaron unas nuevas generaciones tan distantes de las viejas oligarquías patricias como de las veleidades levantiscas de la nobleza marginal. Estaban trazando, acaso sin saberlo, los caminos de la modernidad.