THE EXPEDITION OF THE BROTHERS NODAL AND DIEGO RAMÍREZ DE ARELLANO. THE LEGACY IN HISPANIC CARTOGRAPHY OF THE 17TH CENTURY

Four centuries ago the brothers Bartolomé and Gonzalo Nodal, together with the pilot Diego Ramírez de Arellano, were sent by the Spanish crown to the southern seas of America with the mission of verifying the Dutch discovery of the Le Maire Strait and Cape Horn. After corroborating the referred geographic landmarks, renaming them as estrecho de San Vicente and cabo de San Ildefonso, they traveled through the territory discovering the Diego Ramírez Islands and later returning to Spain by way of the Strait of Magellan in 1619. The consequences of this expedition did not the expected impact on European print cartography, with the exception of the aforementioned discovered archipelago and other minor place names, but it did have an influence on Spanish cartography and navigation in the 17th century, particularly on the navigational nautical routes used in the South Sea.