• 
• 
• 
  • 
  • 
  • 
  • 
• 
• 
• 

reveal that cartography was much appreciated, and not only in an urban setting.

2.a.- The limited cartographic production of the peninsula.

As this demand arose, the graphic and cartographic arts were perfected in an attempt to satisfy the needs of modern society. In Spain and Portugal, this demand was met much later than in other European countries, as shown by this collection, which contains but a few examples of maps edited in the Iberian peninsula, in spite of the important cartographic studies that arose from the geographic discoveries of the 15th and 16th centuries. At the time, Sagres, Lisbon and Seville were leaders in cartography and the geographic sciences, thanks to growth overseas. Nevertheless, in Spain and Portugal there was a constant shortage of specialist map makers and surveyors which created a tendency to recruit foreign experts for most of their administrative, military, political and jurisdictional cartography. This circumstance is evidently reflected in the manuscript maps of the peninsula contained in the Military Archives at Stockholm: Italian, French and Flemish authors were commissioned by the Portuguese and/or Spanish monarchs and, although they did not always sign their work, its origin is revealed by the texts attached to their drawings. This is the case, for instance, with the plan of the city of Lisbon and its accesses (3), drawn up in 1661 by an unknown Italian who made use of numerous Italianisms in the long descriptive text. Engineer Ambrosio de Borsano was the author of plans 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, which represent different Castilian and Portuguese towns in the context of the Portuguese War of Restoration (1640-1668). Borsano, an Italian, spent his long professional career at the service of the Spanish Monarchy, working extensively both