BETWEEN THE LAW AND THE TRAZA: GRAPHIC EXPRESSION OF NOTARIAL CHARACTER DURING THE URBAN FOUNDATION OF MANCHA REAL, JAÉN, 1539

Abstract

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 Jaén's Sierra Sur between 1508 and 1539. At its peak, this colonizing process was coordinated by Madrid-based judge Juan de Rivadeneyra between April and August 1539. He worked hand in hand with a commission of notaries, builders, and surveyors 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 plan tracer of the process. The foundational traza conserved today is a 1570 direct copy of Reolid's work from 1539. Even though this copy does not adequately reproduce either Reolid's calligraphy or his artistic gesture, it does feature the same graphic, cartographic, and notarial criteria applied in other latitudes of the Spanish Empire.