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correspond to places on the Principality’s land and maritime borders. From North to South, the towns of Ager (84), Balaguer (229), Lérida (230, 1, 231, 83), Fraga (76), Flix (86), Miravet (87) and Tortosa (94, 95, 232, 88), mark the war’s western border; a line that had been clearly defined by the end of its third campaign. In 1643, in its advance towards Aragon, the uprisen army brought the front dangerously close to Zaragoza (96, 75), a city that housed the monarch on different occasions. From then on, the towns on the western side were to be the scene of heavy combat aimed at securing control of an area of great strategic value. From a military perspective, Lérida was unquestionably the most important and strategically valuable stronghold on the western border. Taken by the independentists in 1642, it played a crucial role as the centre of operations of the French-Catalan army in its attempt to occupy other nearby towns. The city was recovered by the army of Philip IV in August, 1644 after three months of siege. In Catalonia, Lérida appears as an invincible stronghold loyal to the Spanish monarchy, becoming a symbol of its power by continuously repelling the enemy’s attacks, including the last and most crucial attempt by the French Duke of Enguien (82). The defeat of Lérida was the last great French offensive of any import in Catalonia, and marked a change in its military strategy, after which it focused largely on the Spanish monarchy’s Italian holdings.

The northern border of the Principality of Catalonia is also present in this collection with plans of Puigcerdá (233, 90, 91) and Bellver (171, 92), the two most important towns in Baja Cerdeña that the Spanish monarchy was able to keep, unlike the counties of Rosellón, Conflent, Vallespir and Alta Cerdeña, lost to France in 1659, after the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed. Finally, the eastern border of the