Ursula Lamb, formerly University of Arizona, USA

'This...is a book that a wide variety of historians- political, diplomatic, and social, as well as historians of science, cartography, and exploration- should find invaluable.' JEMH '...this fascinating overview of the equipment, personalities and politics from which evolved the enhanced maritime capabilities required for effective control of Spain’s vastly expanded empire.' Terrae Incognitae: The Journal for the History of Discoveries, Vol. XXIX

• Contents: Introduction; The cosmographies of Pedro de Medina; The Quatri Partitu en Cosmographia by Alonso de Chaves: an interpretation; Science by litigation: a cosmographic feud; La nueva ciencia geográfica; The Spanish cosmographic juntas of the 16th century; Cosmographers of Seville: nautical science and social experience; The Sevillian lodestone: science and circumstance;The teaching of pilots and the Chronographía o Repertorio de los Tiempos; Nautical scientists and their clients in Iberia (1508-1624): science from imperial perspective; Dos huellas científicas del tratado de Tordesillas; Puerto de Caballos, Honduras: an abandoned choice; The silver masters: a link in the Spanish silver chain; Advice to the King: the route to the Indies and the South Atlantic; Argos and Polyphemus: eyes on the New World; Martín Fernández de Navarrete clears the deck: the Spanish Hydrographic Office (1809-1824); The London years of Felipe Bauzá: Spanish hydrographer in exile, 1823-34; Early Spanish plans for lithographic reproduction of maps: a fruitful failure; Index.