Between the law and the traza
This article presents new visual and historiographical contributions regarding the 1570 foundational traza of Mancha Real, conserved at Granada’s Royal Chancery Archive as the single surviving graphic document from the new settlement project executed by the Castilian crown in Jaen’s Sierra Sur between 1508 and 1539. The peak stage of this colonizing process was coordinated by Madrid-based judge Juan de Rivadeneyra between April and August, 1539. He operated along with a commission of notaries, alarifes and measurers who applied urban practices parallel to those developed in Latin America since 1501. They were supported by a still young Juan de Reolid as the official tracista of the process. The foundational traza of 1570 is a direct copy of Reolid’s work. Even though it did not translated neither Reolid’s manuscript nor his artistic gesture, it does feature the same graphic, cartographic, and notarial criteria applied in other latitudes of the Spanish Empire.
Manuel Sánchez García. “Between the law and the traza: graphic expression of notarial character during the urban foundation of Mancha Real, Jaén, 1539,” EGA – Revista de Expresión Gráfica Arquitectónica 49 (2023): 104-119. https://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/EGA/article/view/19192/16237
