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Urban Cartography in Latin America During the Colonial Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Jorge E. Hardoy
Jorge E. Hardoy*
Affiliation:
Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Regionales (Buenos Aires)
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No history exists of the cartography of the countries that currently comprise Latin America. Nor is there a history of urban cartography, although there are excellent books containing collections of plans of the cities of that part of the world. No one should be surprised therefore to find that historians, geographers, architects, and other specialists interested in the evolution of Latin American cities have made scant use of regional and city plans in their studies. It is possible that the growing interest shown during recent decades in the regional and urban history of Latin America and in the conservation of its historical centers, cities, and towns may occasion increased interest in the kind of information that regional and urban plans offer to the researcher. Sooner or later, specialists involved in studying the process of urbanization and re-gionalization in Latin America will recognize the importance of studying the socio-historical process of structuring space and of analyzing the different cultural groups who occupied that space. Cartography, with its increasing precision through the centuries, its emphasis on distances, on geographical elements and direction, on the representation of some of the most important works of man—for example, the placement of cities, towns, roads, ports, bridges, and irrigation canals—ought to be an essential source of information.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , 1983 , pp. 127 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

Translated with funds provided by the Ford Foundation.

References

Notes

1. Third Symposium on “El proceso de urbanización en América desde sus orígenes hasta nuestros días,” coordinated by Jorge E. Hardoy and Richard P Schaedel, in Actas del XXXIX Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Volume 2 (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1970), pp. 9-404; and in Urbanización y proceso social en América (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 1972), pp. 157-90.

2. Revista de Indias, Nos. 131-38, Madrid (Jan. 1973-Dec. 1974):315-44.

3. The list of archives and libraries consulted comprises Appendix A of “La cartografía urbana en América Latina durante el período colonial. Un análisis de fuentes,” in Ensayos histórico-sociales sobre la urbanización en América Latina, compiled by Jorge E. Hardoy, Richard M. Morse, and Richard P. Schaedel, pp. 19-58 (Buenos Aires: Ediciones SIAP, 1978), and in Actas del XLII Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Volume 10, pp. 273-367, abridged version (Paris, 1979).

4. Hardoy, “Cartografía,” pp. 19-58.

5. Rafael M. Ramírez de Arellano, La capital a través de los siglos (San Juan, Puerto Rico: privately printed, 1950). This work provides a good selection of plans and views, but they are badly reproduced and interspersed with trivial texts.

6. Enrique Marco Dorta, Cartagena de Indias (Cartagena: Alfonso Amado Editor, 1960).

7. Erwin Walter Palm, Los monumentos arquitectónicos de La Española (Santo Domingo: Universidad de Santo Domingo, 1955).

8. José Antonio Calderón Quijano, “Nueva cartografía de los puertos de Acapulco, Campeche y Veracruz,” Anuario de Estudios Americanos 25 (Seville, 1968).

9. Graziano Gasparini includes plans and views of La Guaira (almost all of dating from the eighteenth century or after) in his recent book on the preservation efforts in that city and port.

10. Carlos Travieso, Montevideo en la época colonial: su evolución a través de mapas y planos españoles (Montevideo: 1937). Also, Iconografía de Montevideo (Montevideo: Consejo Departamental, 1955).

11. A. Taullard, Los planos más antiguos de Buenos Aires (1580-1880) (Buenos Aires: Peuser Editores, 1940); and Guillermo Moores, Estampas y vistas de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1599-1895 (Buenos Aires: Peuser Editores, 1945).

12. Joaquim de Sousa-Leão, Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos: Iconografía Seiscentista Desconhecida (The Hague: Kosmos, 1957).

13. Manuel Carrera Stampa, “Planos de la ciudad de México,” Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística 68, nos. 2-3 (1949):265-427.

14. José Barbagelata and Juan Bromley, Evolución urbana de la ciudad de Lima (Lima: Concejo Provincial de Lima, 1945).

15. Luis T. Paz y Niño, Apuntes para una geografía humana de Quito (Mexico: IPGH, 1960).

16. Irma Sola Ricardo, Contribución al estudio de los planos de Caracas: 1567-1967 (Caracas: Dirección de Cartografía, Ministerio de Obras Públicas, 1967); also, Graziano Gasparini and Juan Pedro Posani, Caracas a través de su arquitectura (Caracas: Fundación Fina Gómez, 1969).

17. São Paulo Antigo: Planos da Cidade (São Paulo: Commisão do IV Centenário da Cidade de São Paulo, 1954). This collection consists of eleven nineteenth-century plans.

18. Gilberto Ferrez, As Cidades do Salvador e do Rio de Janeiro no Século XVIII (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, 1963).

19. “Guía de colecciones de planos de ciudades iberoamericanas,” Revista de Indias, nos. 153-54 (July-Dec. 1978):791-851 (Madrid).

20. Iohannes Vingboons, Atlas Vaticano, in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 2105-6. Drawn in the mid-seventeenth century.

21. Nicolás de Cardona, Descripciones geographicas e hydrographicas de muchas tierras y mares del Norte y Sur de las Indias, in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, manuscripts 2468. The collection was completed before 1632.

22. Jean-Jacques Bellin, Le Petit Atlas Maritime (Paris: Par ordre de M. le duc de Choisseul, Ministre de la Guerre et de la Marine, 1764). It contains good plans of Caribbean and Atlantic ports as well as of Lima and Quito.

23. Pierre François Xavier Charlevoix, Histoire de l'isle espagnole ou de S. Domingue (Paris: Chez Hippolyte Guerin, 1730), 2 vols.

24. Amadée François Frezier, Relation du voyage de la Mer du Sud aux côtes du Chily et du Perou (Paris: J. G. Nyon printer, 1716), 4 vols.

25. Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa, Relación histórica del viaje a la América Meridional (Madrid: Antonio Marin, 1748). The maps and plans are very precise and detailed.

26. Gaspar Barlaeus, Rerum per octennium in Brasilia (Amsterdam: Ex typographeio Ioannis Blaeu, 1647). Excellent collection of plans of northern and northeastern Brazil.

27. Giovanni Giuseppe di Santa Teresa, Istoria delle guerre del regno del Brasile accaduta tra la Corona di Portogallo e la Republica di Ollanda (Roma: Nella Stamperia degl'Eredi del Corbelletti, 1698).

28. Tomas López, Atlas geográfico de la América septentrional y meridional (Madrid: A. Saenz, 1758).

29. Planos de ciudades iberoamericanas y filipinas existentes en el Archivo de Indias (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios de Administración Local, 1951), 2 vols.

30. Luis Silveira, Ensaio de Iconografía das Cidades Portuguesas do Ultramar (Lisboa: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1956), 4 vols. Volume IV is devoted to Brazil.

31. Frederik Wieder, Monumenta Cartographica: Reproductions of Unique and Rare Maps, Plans, and Views in the Actual Size of the Originals, Accompanied by Cartographical Monographs (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1925-33), 5 vols. The twenty-five plates devoted to the work of Vingboons are included in Volumes I, II, and IV. See also Roberto Almagià, Monumenta Cartographica Vaticana (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944-55), 4 vols. Volume I includes reproductions of the famous planispheres of Diogo Ribeiro (1529), of Girolano da Verrazzano (1529), who first represented Tenochtitlán in a planisphere, and the anonymous planisphere of 1530 that gives the precise location of Cuzco (not yet visited by the Spaniards) and of Tenochtitlán. These planispheres can be seen in the galleries of the Vatican museum.

32. Cartografía de Ultramar (Madrid: Servicio Geográfico e Histórico del Ejército, 1949-58), 4 vols. Volume I is devoted to America in general and Volume II to the United States and Canada. Volume III covers Mexico and includes several plans of Acapulco, Veracruz, and Mexico City, as well as plans of several minor towns that are seldom represented cartographically. Volume IV covers Central America.

33. Hardoy and Solano, “Guia.”

34. See the catalogue of the exposition of plans prepared by the Archivo and exhibited in October 1978 at the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.

35. Both works, but especially the first, are essential for the scholar interested in the urban history of Brazil. Nestor Gonlart Reis Filho, Evolução Urbana do Brasil (São Paulo: Livraria Pioneira Editôra, 1968), and Paulo F. Santos, Formação de Cidades no Brasil Colonial (Coimbra: V Coloquio Internacional de Estudos Luso-Brasileiros, 1968).

36. This essay was published as “Planos de ciudades y cartógrafos de las antiguas colonias de España en América durante el siglo XVI,” in De historia e historiadores: homenaje a José Luis Romero (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, 1982), pp. 197-224.

37. This essay was prepared for a book to be published by Duke University Press. It is to be presented, with the coordination of Dr. Duncan Kinkead, to Professor Sidney Markman on the occasion of his retirement. Professor Markman is a well-known specialist on the history of the art and architecture of the old Audiencia of Guatemala. The geographical area to which he gave most emphasis in his studies partly determined the subjects covered by the authors of the essays that comprise the book.