Discovering the Legacy of Hispanic/Spanish and South American Landscapes through Geohistorical Sources: The Geographical and Topographical Relations of Philip II

Abstract

Landscapes have history and memory, which are eloquent generators of testimonies and traces on the processes of the landscape that take place today, and that will take place in the future. In recent years, numerous methods of analysing land and landscape patterns have been developed and evaluated, based on the multiplicity of these type of geographic and historical data sources, which have developed the concept of the geohistorical source. The goal of these sources of information allows us to historically reconstruct landscapes. With this in mind, the basic objective of the present research is to approach a geohistorical source with a wide spatial spectrum in Europe and America: the geographical and topographical relations of Philip II. This source has been chosen for the quality, quantity, variety and systematization of the data it provides on the territory and landscape of the crown of Castile. In addition, it ended up being the model of how to obtain organized and homogeneous knowledge of a large spatial area, considering the geographical, anthropological and historical data of the different territories. This geohistorical source is reliable, because the local authorities, both secular and ecclesiastical, are questioned, as they are the ones who inhabit, use, and, at different levels, govern the territory and its people.