Science in the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, 1500-1800

454 Pages·2008·6.26 MB·English

by  Daniela Bleichmar

Science in the Spanish and Portuguese
Empires, 1500–1800

Science in the Spanish and Portuguese
Empires, 1500–1800
Edited by
Daniela Bleichmar, Paula De Vos,
Kristin Huffine, and Kevin Sheehan
;
stanford university press
stanford, california
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2009 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
This book has been published with the assistance of the USC-Huntington Early
Modern Studies Institute; the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences; and
the History Department, Graduate School, College of Arts and Sciences, and
Center for Latino and Latin American Studies at Northern Illinois University.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission
of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Science in the Spanish and Portuguese empires, 1500-1800 / edited by
Daniela Bleichmar ... [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8047-5358-6 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Science--Latin America--History. 2. Science--Spain--Colonies--History.
3. Science--Portugal--Colonies--History. 4. Science--Latin America--Histori-
ography. 5. Latin America--History--To 1830. I. Bleichmar, Daniela, 1973-
Q127.L38S36 2009
509.03--dc22 2008041298
Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/12 Sabon
Contents
Illustrations, ix
Tables, xi
Contributors, xiii
Preface, xix
Acknowledgments, xxiii
Introduction
Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, 1
part i
reassessing the role of iberia in early modern science
1. Science, Medicine, and Technology in Colonial Spanish America:
New Interpretations, New Approaches
David Goodman, 9
2. Portuguese Imperial Science, 1450–1800:
A Historiographical Review
Palmira Fontes da Costa and Henrique Leitão, 35
part ii
new worlds, new sciences
3. Cosmography at the Casa, Consejo, and Corte
During the Century of Discovery
María M. Portuondo, 57
vi Contents
4. Science During the Portuguese Maritime Discoveries:
A Telling Case of Interaction Between
Experimenters and Theoreticians
Onésimo T. Almeida, 78
5. Baroque Natures:
Juan E. Nieremberg, American Wonders, and
Preterimperial Natural History
Juan Pimentel, 93
part iii
knowledge production: local contexts, global empires
6. Cosmopolitanism and Scientific Reason in New Spain:
Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and the
Dispute over the 1680 Comet
Anna More, 115
7. Medical Mestizaje and the Politics of Pregnancy
in Colonial Guatemala, 1660–1730
Martha Few, 132
8. “Read All About It”:
Science, Translation, Adaptation, and Confrontation
in the Gazeta de Literatura de México, 1788–1795
Fiona Clark, 147
9. The Indies of Knowledge, or the Imaginary Geography
of the Discoveries of Gold in Brazil
Júnia Ferreira Furtado, 178
10. Space Production and Spanish Imperial Geopolitics
Nuria Valverde and Antonio Lafuente, 198
part iv
commerce, curiosities, and the circulation of knowledge
11. Knowledge and Empiricism in the
Sixteenth-Century Spanish Atlantic World
Antonio Barrera-Osorio. 219
Contents vii
12. Voyaging in the Spanish Baroque:
Science and Patronage in the Pacific Voyage of
Pedro Fernández de Quirós, 1605–1606
Kevin Sheehan, 233
13. Acquisition and Circulation of Medical Knowledge
within the Early Modern Portuguese Colonial Empire
Timothy Walker, 247
14. The Rare, the Singular, and the Extraordinary:
Natural History and the Collection of Curiosities
in the Spanish Empire
Paula De Vos, 271
15. A Visible and Useful Empire:
Visual Culture and Colonial Natural History
in the Eighteenth-Century Spanish World
Daniela Bleichmar, 290
Afterword
Noble David Cook and Alexandra Parma Cook, 311
Notes, 325
Index, 419

Illustrations
Figures
3.1. Determining the Sun’s Elevation Using an Astrolabe, 1563, 62
3.2. Instructions for Making a Nautical Astrolabe, 1588, 66
3.3. Questionnaire Cover of the Relaciones de Indias, 1579, 71
3.4. Lunar Eclipse Observation by Jaime Juan, Mexico, 1584, 75
4.1. Astrolabe, 1555, 80
4.2. Portrait of Dom João de Castro, Paris, 1833, 81
4.3. Page from D. João de Castro, Tratado da Sphera, 1537, 82
4.4. Page from D. João de Castro, Tratado da Sphera, 1537, 83
4.5. Measuring the Height of the Sun, 1557, 85
5.1. Still Life, Juan Van der Hamer, 1627, 94
5.2. Portrait of Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, Woodcut, 1659, 95
5.3. Manucodiata (Bird of Paradise), Woodcut, 1635, 108
5.4. Granadilla (Passion Flower), Woodcut, 1635, 111
8.1. Portrait of José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez (1737–1799), 149
8.2. (Left) Article by Pingré in the Journal de Physique, 1774.
(Right) Translation published in the Gazeta de Literatura,
1791, 167
9.1. Portrait of José Rodrigues Abreu, 179
9.2. Castle near Rio Caia at the Portuguese-Spanish Border, 184
10.1. Detail of Miguel Venegas’s Mapa Geográfico de la California,
1757, 207
13.1. Engraving of the Royal Military Hospital of Goa, India, 249