La Reconquista cartográfica: el Islam peninsular en la cartografia medieval hispana

Abstract

The Beatus mappaemundi and Mallorcan nautical charts should be [analyzed] with attention not only to what they represent, but also to what they omit. These maps show a utopian image of the world in which Islam is not present. Their depiction of the Iberian Peninsula is closely linked with the process of the Reconquest: territory that had been occupied by Islam is included as part of the world only after it has been conquered by the Christians. This is what happened with Toledo and Seville in the maps which illustrate the Commentary on the Apocalypse, and with Granada in Mallorcan charts. The cartographers of these maps, in choosing what to communicate and what to conceal, modified or disguised reality, changing the image of the world which they wished to project. These maps thus reflect a territorial narration of historya subjective history, told by its own protagonists.