Antonio Sánchez receives award from Univ. Autónoma de Madrid

 

Antonio Sánchez has been awarded the "Prémio Extraordinario de Doutor" by Universidade Autónoma de Madrid in the area of Philosophy and Humanities, for the academic year of 2009-2010, with his PhD dissertation "La representación cartográfica en el siglo de oro de la cosmografía española: categorías epistémicas en la fabricación de modelos visuales" in Philosophy, supervised by Javier Moscoso Sarabia (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Departamento de Lingüística, Lenguas Modernas, Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia, Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada, Madrid, 2010).

Abstract

One of the most flourishing periods of Spanish cartography was followed the discovery of the Americas. From enthronement of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon in 1474 to the death of Philip II in 1598, the New World stimulated the production of maps and charts. From 1500, when Juan de la Cosa produced his famous world map, Spanish cartographic activity was linked to cosmography, being influenced by the rediscovery of the Ptolemy’s Geographia in the humanist circles of Europe, and to navigation, being affected by Mediterranean portulan charts, and Mallorcan and later Portuguese charting.

In the past decade scientific activity in the Iberian Peninsula has attracted the interest of scholars. All of them have focused on the cosmographic activity of the Casa de la Contratación (House of Trade) in Seville or on the Court of Madrid in relation to the transoceanic voyages of Magellan-Elcano between 1519 and 1522. These scholars have highlighted the efforts of the Spanish crown to control and organize all aspects of its new possessions. They have shown, behind the disputes, controversies, and diplomatic skirmishes between officers, courtiers, craftsmen, and pilots, lay a highly bureaucratized science dominated by a centralized state, under both Charles V (reg. 1516–1556) and his son Philip II (reg.1556–1598).

From the foundation of the Casa de la Contratación by Isabella and Ferdinand in 1503, cosmography was considered a science which should serve the empire. Cosmographers were to demonstrate the usefulness of observation, experimentation, and theoretical knowledge such as the determination of latitude, the establishment of longitude by mariners at sea, the solution to the problem of magnetic declination, or the establishment of the Earth shape.

My research asks what made a map or chart an adequate representation in sixteenth-century Spain. I suggest answers based on nautical, cosmographical, and cartographical works from the first nautical charts of the Atlantic world to Antonio de Herrera’s Descripción de las Indias Occidentales (1601) and Andrés García de Céspedes’s Hydrographia (1606), as well as on texts by Martín Fernández de Enciso, Francisco Falero, Martín Cortés, and others. Authors, cartographers, and cosmographers disagreed on what constituted satisfactory cartographic representation. Cosmographers with scientific training working in Seville argued, sometimes in front of the king, the best charts were those based on the best theoretical knowledge. Pilots, who were practically illiterate, maintained the best charts were those facilitated navigation and made their job easier. Alonso de Chaves thought a map should represent faithfully the physical elements of nature; Pedro de Medina considered a satisfactory chart was justa y cierta (precise and true); and Rodrigo Zamorano suggested a chart should be ad vivum (true to life). For some the priority was an accurate representation of territory. For others it was beauty and harmony. And for nearly all it was usefulness. Examples of charts produced to facilitate control and domination of the New World include the Padrón Real and charts with two distinct latitude scales made by Diego Gutiérrez, the maps in Alonso de Santa Cruz’s Islario General de todas las islas del mundo (1530s?), the plans and sketches in Baltasar Vellerino de Villalobos’s Luz de navegantes (1592), and the pinturas (maps) in Relaciones Geográficas de Indias (1578–86).

Cartography is affected both the development of natural philosophy and the ideal of scientific progress. Mapping as an activity, both practical and theoretical, as well as the construction of instruments like the astrolabe and quadrant, anticipated in the second half of the sixteenth century the new natural philosophy of the Baroque Instauration advocated by Francis Bacon in early seventeenth century. It is striking that the images on the cover of Andrés García de Céspedes’s Regimiento de navegación (1606) and Bacon’s Instauratio Magna (1620) are so similar. The ship crossing the Pillars of Hercules represents both the Baconian premise of the mastery of man over nature and the knowledge gained through the conquest of American Indians. Developments in Spain or Portugal, considered peripheral to the Scientific Revolution, also contributed to the domination and control of the natural world.

Cartographic conquest of the Atlantic Ocean and the New World marked the scientific policy of the Universal Monarchy in the golden age of Spanish cosmography. Maps produced by the servers or officers of the king -whether cosmographic, hydrographic or chorographic- had the ability to offer two of the most valued categories by dynastic and patrimonial Habsburg policy and the preeminent power of Charles V and Philip II. This duality was the utility and ostentation, profit and reputation, pragmatism and royal supremacy, territorial sovereignty and monarchical authoritarianism. Under a republic of subjects governed by clientelism, patronage and serfdom relations, the Habsburg Spain standardized and systematized the empirical sciences like cosmography and navigation. Crown joined theory and practice, experience and science making visible its large overseas empire. Imperial needs of space control embodied in different forms of mapping led to the real and metaphorical conquest of the world as image. Given the humanist liking for imitation and the Hispanic Monarchy obsession for capturing the world through ‘paintings’, visual cartographic culture represented the more attractive artifact to promote a scientific policy sustained in the interests of a patrimonial state.

These aspects of Spain’s five hundred would not have been possible without the humanist rediscovery of Ptolemaic cartography and its adaptation to new discoveries. It gave rise to a number of factors embodying the cosmographic ideal of Ptolemy’s Geographia. These factors were essentially four: 1) In the Spanish court, the role played by the preincely ostentation and political propaganda in maps was decisive in the power relations of the modern world. 2) Spanish institutionalization of mapping, creation of official forms of representation, and establishment of scientific positions linked to the production of maps determined the structure of a global scientific framework. 3) The emergence of prose cartography deployed through of numerous works disciplined experience and attenuated the differences between ‘practical men’ and ‘theoretical men’. 4) Finally, the pinturas (maps) of already explored regions were used by the crown to provide a comprehensive survey of the new territories. From a global perspective, cosmographers of the peninsula are the epilogue to the Ptolemaic question about the representation of the world on a flat surface. Hispanic world of cartographic representation can be analyzed from the manufacture of four forms of visual representation: universal or cosmographical maps (world maps) and its links with other forms of knowledge like the pictorial art in a context of court; hydrographical maps (nautical charts) in an institutional setting like the House of Trade; the textual, in prose or romance language mapping that illustrate the treatises and manuals of cosmography and navigation; and chorographic or regional maps (pinturas) of Indian lands.