Making a Global Image of the World: Science, Cosmography and Navigation in Times of the First Circumnavigation of Earth, 1492-1522

Abstract

The voyages of exploration and discovery during the period of European maritime expansion and the immense amount of information and artefacts they produced about our knowledge of the world have maintained a difficult, if not non-existent, relationship with the main historiographical lines of the history of early modern science. This article attempts to problematize this relationship based on a historical account that seeks to highlight the scientific and institutional mechanisms that made the Magellan-Elcano voyage, the first modern voyage, possible. The text argues that this voyage was the first modern voyage because it allowed the construction of a new scientific and cartographic image of the globe and contributed to our understanding of the world as a global world, altering the foundations on which modern European economic and geographic thought was based. In that sense, the voyage was something extraordinary, but not completely unexpected. It responded to a complex process of expansionary policy and technical development that dated back to the 15th century, which in 1519 was sufficiently articulated to carry out a great feat.