The artisans of "Plus Ultra": pilots, cartographers, and cosmographers in the Casa de la Contratación in Seville during the sixteenth century

• Autores: Antonio Sánchez Martínez
• Localización: The Circulation of Science and Technology: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of the European Society for the History of Science. Barcelona, 18-20 November 2010 / coord. por Antoni M. Roca Rosell, 2012, ISBN 978-84-9965-108-8, págs. 946-951
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In the context of the growing historiographical interest that is causing the world of Iberian science, especially among non-Spanish authors, during the Early Modern period after the Discovery of America, in this paper the author shows how it carried out the grand project of institutionalization of cosmography throughout the sixteenth century, from the Catholic Monarchs to Philip II. Through the inner workings of the House of Trade, the Indian Council, and the Academy of Mathematics this paper highlights how the Universal Monarchy and its conqueror slogan ‘Plus Ultra’ tried to encircle the Atlantic world first, and to dominate the New World later, by means of Cosmography, an essential science for the maintenance of the overseas Empire2 .

    The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the institutionalization of cosmography and navigation ended with the slogan Non Terrae Plus Ultra, and led to the emergence of imperial heading Plus Ultra helped by the navigation of a Mare Tenebrosum (the Atlantic Ocean), and the delineation of the contours of a new world that began beyond the Columns of Hercules. This process was made possible by the establishment in Seville of the House of Trade in 1503 and the creation of scientific offices such as Pilot Major, master of making nautical charts or cosmographer. The ship that appears on the cover of the Regimiento de navegación (1606) by Andres Garcia de Céspedes across the pillars of the hero of Greek mythology highlights the Baconian premise of man’s dominion over nature, the knowledge gained through the conquest of the West Indies, and also the wishes of the Spanish Monarchy by taking advantage of the usefulness of scientific knowledge by joining the nautical experience and cosmographical theory.