Abstract

THERRIEN, Monika. Cosmography and Chorography of Bogotá, 16th and 17th Centuries. Apuntes [online]. 2013, vol.26, n.1, pp.88-101. ISSN 1657-9763.

The imperial expansion of European kingdoms throughout the world, which began in the fifteenth century, increased the use of mapping as an essential tool to understand and master the continents where they had penetrated and specially in the new territories they aimed to explore. To this end, in the late sixteenth century the Spanish Crown reintroduced cosmography as a field of knowledge applied to the continents of America and Oceania, and developed instruments for the chorographic and geographical recognition of the territories claimed on behalf of the King. Cosmography naturalized ways to describe the new colonies and its habitants as well as ways to produce, read and use maps as a representation of the achievements and ideals of imperial policies, concerning land management and to report the implementation of the actual rules. The paper introduces some relevant aspects of the Mayor Chronicler Cosmograph post and of the instruments that generated a cosmography and a normative cartography, and a reflection on how to create a chorography and practiced cartography, based not in the official look but in an interdisciplinary approximation to understand the spaces where individuals from different backgrounds, specifically in Santa Fe and Bogota, converged, coexisted and developped.

Keywords : Cosmography; chorography; chroniclers; practiced cartography; Bogotá; Cosmography-History-Bogotá; historical geography; historiography; geographical discoveries; land-Bogotá (Colombia).

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