• 
• 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
• 
• 

1.- Introduction: Iberian maps and plans in the Military Archives of Stockholm.

The cartographic documents in this publication are from the Military Archives of Stockholm (Krigsarkivet), which contains an important number of geographical maps and city plans referring to the Iberian Peninsula, of both civilian and military origin. This interesting material, of various authors, themes and artistic techniques, covers the 17th and 18th centuries and completes the different extensive cartographic documents found in Spain, Portugal and other foreign cartographic archives. The importance of this documentation for Spain and Portugal is considerable, not only because of the number of documents available but thanks to the wealth of information contained in each and every one of them. This initiative, supported, sponsored and funded by Fundaci�n El Monte, and also financed by the Regional Government of Extremadura�s Office for Transborder Initiatives, aims to divulge and disseminate part of our peninsular cartographic legacy which, although numerous, is dispersed in different public and private archives. We include 313 documents covering a broad time frame: from 1643, the oldest dated plan in the collection, drawn up by Bernab� de Gainza of the city of Lerida (1), to 1797, when William Faden published the map of the Kingdom of Portugal (2). The rest of the material was edited and/or published between these two dates. A significant amount was created by engraving and calcographic printing, but there are also numerous manuscript documents that were never published for political and military strategy reasons. They each account for approximately half of the total: 165 maps published by some of the most renowned European firms at the time, and 148 manuscript maps which undoubtedly represent the Swedish archive�s most