Orta, Bernardo de

Dirección de Hidrografía

1798

Plano del Puerto de Veracruz

Dirección de Hidrografía

Madrid

Chart Map

50

64

José Antonio Calderón Quijano, ‘Nueva Cartografía de los Puertos de Acapulco, Campeche y Veracruz,’ pp. 38-9, fig. 67; José Antonio Calderón Quijano, Historia de las fortificaciones en Nueva España, no. 109 (p. 447); Phillips, A List of Geographical Atlases in the Library of Congress, no. 4155, map 27.

Veracruz (Mexico)

Nautical Charts

Plano del Puerto de Veracruz en la Costa Ocidental del Seno Mexicano. Por Dn. Bernardo De Orta, Capitan de Navio Graduado de la Rl. Armada y de dicho Puerto. Año de 1798.

10488.000

Orta, Bernardo de

Dirección de Hidrografía

1798

Plano del Puerto de Veracruz en la Costa Ocidental del Seno Mexicano. Por Dn. Bernardo De Orta, Capitan de Navio Graduado de la Rl. Armada y de dicho Puerto. Año de 1798.

"A rare separately issued sea chart of Veracruz, historically Mexico’s main gateway to the Atlantic and Europe, the first printed scientific hydrographic survey of the harbour, by Captain Bernardo de Orta. This rare and beautifully engraved sea chart has the distinction of being the first edition of the first published scientific survey of the harbour of Veracruz, long Mexico’s most important transport hub and its gateway to the Atlantic and Europe. It is based on a survey conducted in 1796 by Captain Bernardo de Orta of the Armada Real, who was posted for many years at Veracruz. His manuscript map was dispatched to Madrid and printed by the Armada’s newly founded hydrographic service, the Dirección de Hidrografía, as a key component of a larger programme to scientifically map the coasts of the Spanish Americas and to publish the resulting charts. Given Veracruz’s extreme prominence, Orta’s chart was one of the most important Spanish sea charts of its era, and was imbued with great authority not only by mariners, but also by intellectuals such as Alexander von Humboldt. The chart is a beautiful example of the prevailing Enlightenment style of maritime cartography, with crisp engraving, clearly expressed scientific details and restrained but elegant adornment. The scene is taken from a roughly northeastward perspective, with the walled city of Veracruz appearing in the lower centre, while just across a narrow channel is the famed island fortress of the Castillo de San Juan de Ulúa, the building of which was commenced in 1565. The Castillo had successfully protected the city from numerous pirate raids over previous two centuries, notably the John Hawkins-Francis Drake Raid of 1568. The ‘Placer de Gallega’ and the various other keys and banks that guard the harbour are carefully surveyed, while the several sailing channels are marked through copious bathymetric soundings. Navigational sight lines employ the two tallest buildings in the city as markers, while a finely engraved profile coastal view occupies the lower left corner of the composition. The ‘Advertencias’ and the ‘Nota’ in the upper left corner give extremely detailed directions for sailing into the harbour, with letters on the chart specifically referring to key navigational waypoints and markers. Historical Context: Enlightenment Values and Spanish American Hydrography Bernardo de Orta’s charting of Veracruz Harbour must be taken within the greater revolutionary context of Enlightenment Era cartography in the Spanish Empire. Up to the 1780s, due to Spain’s longstanding official policies of cartographic secrecy, very few hydrographic surveys of Spanish colonial ports were ever published. While excellent manuscript charts of various ports, including Veracruz, were drafted these tended to be in short supply. Moreover, existing Spanish printed maps were often not adequate to serve for practical navigation. For example, while Tomás López de Vargas Machuca’s Plano del Puerto de Veracruz, Plano De La Ciudad y Plaza De La Veracruz, y Castillo de San Juan de Ulua (Madrid, 1780) was an excellent map, is was not a scientific hydrographic survey. Thus, up to this time, the Armada Real frequently had to rely on foreign published charts that were often outdated. Spain’s participation in the American Revolution highlighted the urgency of acquiring accurate geographical and hydrographical intelligence. The lack of excellent printed sea charts came to the attention of Admiral José de Mazarredo y Salazar, who in addition to being a legendary battle commander was one of Spain’s greatest hydrographers. Mazzaredo was a driving force of the Enlightenment in Spain, committed to modernizing the Armada Real and employing the most sophisticated scientific technology and methods to its operations. He worked closely with the great maritime cartographer Vicente Tofiño de San Miguel to resolve the problem by embarking on a grand mapping and publication project. Fortunately, Mazarredo and Tofiño had the active support of King Charles III, who saw their endeavors as key part of his broader reforms of the Ilustración, and so he lifted most of the restrictions on map publication. Inspired by the great sea atlases recently issued by the French and British navies, Mazarredo and Tofiño were determined to oversee the creation of accurate charts that would be published and disseminated to naval commanders. The first priority would be to update the knowledge of the coasts of the Spanish territories in the Spanish Main, the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico. As it stood, the Spanish Navy had access to some fine manuscript surveys, although much of their hydrographic intelligence was fragmentary or outdated. In 1792, Mazarredo and Tofiño decided, with the blessing of Antonio Valdés, the Minister of the Navy, to dispatch two scientific mapping expeditions to the Americas in order to gain the requisite intelligence. First, Cosme Damián de Churruca y Elorza was charged with mapping the coastlines of various islands and harbors between Trinidad and Cuba. Second, Joaquín Francisco Fidalgo was charged with surveying the coast of the Spanish Main and Central America from Trinidad to Coast Rica. The high scientific standards by which all of the programme’s charts were executed, requiring trigonometric methods, regulated by astronomical observations, was regulated by the brilliant Basque cartographer and astronomer José Joaquín de Ferrer y Cafranga. It was during this period that Mazzaredo officially organized the Navy’s cartographic activities under the auspices of a single agency, founding the Dirección de Hidrografía in 1797. This closely followed Britain’s establishment the Admiralty’s Hydrographic Office in 1795. In addition to Churucca and Fidalgo’s endeavors, the Armada Real ordered the commanding officers of all major Spanish colonial ports to submit the best possible charts to the Dirección de Hidrografía for inspection, preferably those made from new scientific surveys conducted by scientific methods. In 1796, Captain Bernardo de Orta, who had already been stationed at Veracruz for a decade, and who perhaps knew the harbour better than anyone else, conducted the first scientific survey of port, executed to Ferrer’s high standards. His manuscript was dispatched to Spain, where in 1798 it was carefully engraved and printed by the Depósito Hidrográfico, the publishing arm of the Dirección de Hidrografía. The present example of the chart represents the first edition of the map. While Orta’s chart was separately issued, examples were also included in a variety of composite atlases assembled by the Dirección de Hidrografía, including the Coleccion de Cartas de America publicadas por la direction de Trabajos Hidrograficos (Madrid, 1800). Meanwhile, as Churrucca and Fidalgo made progress on their endeavors, they regularly sent manuscript charts to Spain. Ferrer helped to supervise the publication of many of these charts as separately issued ‘Cartas Esfericas’. Amazingly, in spite of the turmoil caused by the ongoing Napoleonic Wars, the surveyors completed their respective missions by 1805. Churrucca and Fidalgo’s charts, along with other high-quality Spanish surveys, were then prepared for publication as part of the Portulano de la America Setentrional, envisaged as a grand sea atlas of Colonial American waters in the manner of J.F.W. Des Barres’ Atlantic Neptune (London, 1775-81). Orta’s chart of Veracruz remained the authoritative base map for the harbour for almost half a century, being superseded only by surveys done during the Mexican-American War (1845-8). It was copied many times and adapted to a variety of publications. Most notably, Alexander von Humboldt, the era’s most esteemed scholar of Mexican geography, included a reduced copy of the Orta chart, entitled Plan du Port de Veracruz, Dresse par Don Bernardo de Orta, Capitaine de Vaisseau au service de Sa Majeste Catholique (1807), within the masterly atlas which accompanied his study of Mexico, Atlas Geographique et Physique du Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne (Paris, 1811)." (Alexander Johnson, 2019)

10488.000

Chart Map

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Orta, Bernardo de; Dirección de Hidrografía