Acknowledgments
My first experience of awe in looking at a map takes me back to the office of Professor Denys Lombard, in 1995, while he was director of the Ãcole française de lâExtrême Orient, in Paris. It was a mappamundi with the immense blue stretch of the Pacific Ocean at its center. Not only was I obliged to identify the land masses in this ânewâ image; it was this perspective that led me to reflections on how the way in which we are used to seeing the world is only one of many possibilities, many configurations. The version that became hegemonic, and therefore ânatural,â was historically constructed and had to overcome other rival options. I thank Monsieur Lombard for this first lesson on the rhetoric of maps.
The present book originates in a postdoctoral fellowship that took me to Harvard University from 2012â2013, through support from the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, Brazil), and a fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library, in Providence. During that period, I was able to carry out my work not only at the libraries of the abovementioned institutions, but also at the New York Public Library, and the Oliveira Lima Library, at the Catholic University of America in Washington. Through my mention of these institutions, I also reiterate my gratitude to the many libraries and archives whose labor in digitizing maps and works of the early modern period allowed me access to documents that were essential for my research. In this regard, I extend special thanks to Maria Dulce de Faria, from the Maps Division of the National Library of Rio de Janeiro.
This book is also the result of research that has benefited from fellowships received from the Fondation Maison des Sciences de lâHomme in Paris, and from the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, as well as from the Research Productivity Grant I receive from CNPq.
I owe a lot to many people. When this research was no more than an idea, I received support from Ronaldo Vainfas, Jorge Flores, and Matthew Edney and encouragement, precious suggestions, and tips on sources from Chet van Duzer. I thank Tom Conley, for hosting my research during my postdoctoral stay at the Department of Romance Language and Literature at Harvard University. And as a fitting conclusion to six years of work, I am grateful to Claudia Damasceno Fonseca, for the invitation and the opportunity to present part of my results in talks given at the Ãcole des Hautes Ãtudes en Sciences Sociales, where Antonella Romano, Jean-Marc Besse, and Jean-Fréderic Schaub also welcomed my work.
A number of dialogues and partnerships were fundamental to the making of this book. I thank the friends and colleagues with whom I discussed different aspects of this book, particularly those whom I spent time with at the John Carter Brown Library: Lisa Voigt, Sebastián DÃaz Ãngel, Elena Daniele, Hal Langfur, April Shelford, Guadalupe Pinzón, Chet van Duzer, and Neil Safir and at meetings of the International Conference on the History of Cartography, the Simpósio Iberoamericano de Historia de la CartografÃa and other events where the very productive encounters with Alejandra Vega, Carla Lois, Andrés Velez Posada, Paolo Vignolo, Carolina Martinez, Mauricio Onetto, and Louise Bénat-Tachot took place. From these encounters emerged the Geopam International Network (GeopolÃtica Americana de los siglos XVIâXIX) and I am extremely grateful for the projects we have been able to build together. I also thank the friends and researchers in Brazil who share with me an interest in the themes that run through this book, cartography, modern history, and the Iberian Union: Jacqueline Hermann, Junia Furtado, Laura de Mello e Souza, Maria de Fátima Costa, Artur Barcelos, Iris Kantor, Daniela Marzola Fialho, Tiago Bonato, José Carlos Vilardaga, Vinicius Nicastro Honesko, Amanda Cieslak Kapp, Luis Filipe Silvério Lima, Thomás Haddad, and André Gustavo de Melo Araújo.
I further thank my undergraduate and graduate students at the Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR) for the vitality, enthusiasm, and trust expressed during our classes on cartography, on the early modern period, and on the thought of Michel de Certeau. I particularly thank Bruno Stori and Cláudio César Foltran Ulbrich for their technical help in different moments of my research.
I am grateful for Joseli Mendonçaâs readings of the manuscript at different times and for her suggestions, which I am sure readers would also appreciate. I would also like to make special mention of the friendship and warm reception I received from Vera Gonçalves Keller and her family, and from Maria Marques, Haci Farina, Regina Nadaes Marques, Rinaldo Donati, April Shelford, and Nancy Keyes in many moments and places that were a part of the course of this research.
My deepest gratitude to Walter, and to our sons Theo and Ivan, for their infinite everyday kindness.