Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493-1793

Focusing on cities and towns in South America the book investigates the different ways in which artists, map-makers , surveyors and military engineers represented a city in all its complexity. The author maintains that cities are both built structures and human communities and as a result their representations are rarely straightforward. Indeed one needs to regard these images in light of their particular purpose: administrative views contained topological accuracy; portrait views emphasized the relationship between a certain individual to the city in which she lived; other views drew attention to the human qualities believed to render an individual community unique. Kagan examines the interaction of European and native cartographic traditions as depicted in images of New and Old World cities and towns.