The colombino cycle and the editorial industry. The visual rhetoric at the service of the imperial imaginery (Spain, 1892)

Abstract

The article analyses the position that the representation of the Colombino cycle occupies in the illustrated prints that circulated in Spain in 1892, the year that celebrated the so-called IV Centenary of the Discovery of America, as a rhetoric strategy towards the construction of imperial imaginery. Based on the context of the finisecular editorial industry, particular innitiatives that promoted illustrated publications are emphasized with regards to both the grand elite publishing industry and to small books, pamphlets, and collective products intentended for the juvenile audience, as well as for the bulk of the population in times when illiteracy was very high.