The Spanish Gough maps: first pre-postal maps of the Iberian Peninsula in its European context

In this paper, we study two singular maps, the Modern Map of Spain, attributed to Cardinal Margarit, and Spagna con le distantie de li loci; made in northern Italy in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Like the British Gough map, both already show communication networks with expressed distances. Using formal analysis, statistical methodology, and computer processing, we present the cartographic characteristics of each one and relate them to their historical context, updating the scarce information available until now. We explain their relationship as two milestones of the same cartographic process. At the same time, we study the routes represented, finding out the units of measurement used and the communication networks that both maps show us in the context of the Revolution of Communications that the Renaissance represented in Europe. The research has allowed us to attribute a new dating to them, question the traditional authorship, and advance a theory on the transport networks’ functionality, demonstrating that both maps are part of a cartographic and historical process at the European level. All these updates to the vision on the first maps of communications in Western Europe established new contributions to the relationship between maps and itineraries. It contributes to filling a void occupied in solitary, until now, by the map of Gough of Great Britain.