España. Ministerio de Cultura. Archivo General de Indias. MP-Santo Domingo, 191. Plano General de la Ciudad y Puerto de Santiago de Cuba, 1738.
This beautifully rendered map doubles as a topographical and nautical chart of the Bay of Santiago de Cuba. It locates the entrance to the harbor, El Morro fort, gun batteries and the road connecting them, labels all the main inlets and offshore islands inside the bay and marks the layout of the capital city of Santiago de Cuba with a red ink grid icon. The detailed map even highlights main landmarks inside the city's grid such as the entrance gate, the Cathedral, a convent, a hospital and the docks. Other topographical information featured are rivers, vegetation and elevation of terrain suggested through contour lines and shadows. The map also provides important hydrographicl information such as depth soundings inside the bay and other nautical orientation measurements. The detailed information, the concern with measurements and the skilled draftsmanship of this map exemplifies the professionalization attained by Spanish military personnel by 1738, roughly twenty five years after the foundation in 1711 of a royal corps of engineers along the French model and schools in Barcelona, Pamplona and Cádiz that taught courses in cartography, mathematics and military arts. The map is signed by Don Francisco Fernández Valdelomas, probably a cartographer in the military corps. Many such maps were safe kept in the Casa de Contratación in Seville and used as master charts for the production of other charts carried by royally licensed pilots visiting different ports of call in the Spanish Caribbean and the Indies. Aside from the navigation and military information, the map also points to public works and other valued features associated with the imperial project of settlement and colonization such as the presence of the Church (particularly a Cathedral and a convent), a royal hospital, docks (commerce) and an orderly gridlike urban layout. The beauty of the map speaks to the aesthetic sensibility still associated with the art of cartography at the time.
