Una antinomia protorrenacentista: secreto de estado y divulgación en los descubrimientos luso-castellanos. La cartografía (1418-1495)

Abstract

The Atlantic policies of fifteenth-century Castile and Portugal provoked increasing rivalry between the two states. Henry the Navigator played a key role in the consolidation of the Portuguese overseas project, a project with two broad aims: survey of the Atlantic islands (with the consequent sovereign rights), and the attempted cirumnavigation of the African coast in search of a route to India (with the establishment of coastal bases and onset of trade). John II and the Catholic Kings protagonised the high point of this dispute as a result of Columbus’s voyage and its consequences, contending shrewdly on the political, diplomatic, geographical and scientific levels. A consequence of reasons of State and of this luso-castilian rivalry was a policy of secrecy (with the resulting manipulation of chronicles, facts and nautical charts), espionage in the national interest, and concern to thwart that of others, by altering information and reports so as to mislead other powers.