WALLS AND MONUMENTS OF OLD PEKING

Peking was untouched by the great urban renovations that changed the European capitals over the five centuries between 1500 and 1900, transforming them from medieval towns to modern cities, gradually adapted to provide circulation systems for traffic and with urbanisation first of the artisans, then of the nobility and lastly of the middle-class. This capital - the only one in the world that has not been built along the banks of a great river but on the borders of a large desert close to mountains that give so little protection as to have prompted the construction of the Great Wall - remained intact for many centuries. Even in the Forties of the Nineteenth century it was still surrounded by massive walls ten metres high and wide, squares inside squares - just like Chinese boxes -- and each square was defended by impregnable walls. Palaces, temples, monasteries, towers of majestic elegance rose within this checkerboard of walls. Few but important traces remain of this city, which had come down to our times intact, almost as if by a sortilege, due to the formidable prejudices of its governors and its inhabitants. The author has tried to reconstruct the ancient splendour by going through the Peking of the past together with those who depicted it at that time either in writing or with photographs.