This book is the result of the doctoral research I conducted at the University of Groningen. I want to express my gratitude to my supervisors, Raingard Esser and Jan Willem Veluwenkamp, for their confidence, patience and guidance. The support of Ana Crespo Solana was essential, too. As coordinator of ForSeaDiscovery, she gave me the opportunity of participating in an ambitious scientific project with a fantastic group of colleagues. The funding of the Marie-Curie Action: Initial Training Networks (pitn-ga 2013-607545) made this research possible. In 2018, I joined the andatlan ii project (har2017-85305-p), coordinated by Juan José Iglesias Rodríguez and Jaime García Bernal. I owe a lot to them and to the rest of the members of the chair of Early Modern History in the Universidad de Seville, who inspired me as a student. To complete this PhD project, I received financial support from the Faculty of Arts in Groningen, where I also had the opportunity to teach. I am grateful to my students. Their enthusiasm made me a better historian.
Many people have read earlier versions of the manuscript and have helped significantly improve the final version. In spite of this, the work is far from perfect and I alone am to blame for that. Mike Brown, Nathan Gallagher and Juan Montes Adán proofread different versions of the manuscript. They taught me how to make my ideas sharper in English, although my Mediterranean love for long sentences dies hard. Senior colleagues took time to read my work, improving it with their comments: Oscar Gelderblom, Cátia Antunes, Maarten Duijvendak, Regina Grafe, Manuel Herrero Sánchez, Raymond Fagel, Yolanda Rodríguez Pérez, José Manuel Díaz Blanco, Mercedes Gamero Rojas, Pepijn Brandon and José Luis Gasch Tomás. Their generosity inspires me. I am particularly indebted to Manuel Fernández Chaves and Daniel Gallardo Albarrán for their good counsel.
I also want to thank the staff of the archives I have visited, especially the one working at the Archivo Histórico Provincial de Sevilla. My friends Juanma Castillo Rubio, Nacho González Espinosa, Fran García Domínguez, Miguel Royano Cabrera and Sara Jarana Vidal were a great help there. I am especially grateful to Juanma, who also helped me with the illustrations. I would like to thank Brill’s editors for their support with the preparation of the manuscript, as well as the anonymous reviewers who contributed to improve it with very valuable comments.
Finally, I want to dedicate this book to my parents and Ana for their care.