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.

Abstract: Miguel de Cervantes placed some passages of his masterpiece in Catalonia.
Nevertheless, the features he uses to approach the Catalan reality –halfway between 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.