Prima Brasil : diálogos entre Luís Pinto de Sousa Coutinho e William Faden na consolidação cartográfica do Brasil no mapa Colombia Prima or South America (1807)

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation addresses the collaboration conducted by Luís Pinto de Sousa Coutinho (1735-1804), the Viscount of Balsemão, to provide several maps of Brazil to the English geographer William Faden (1749-1836), in order to influence the drawing of Portuguese America on the map Colombia Prima or South America, first published in 1807. The main question that guided this research was: Why an important royal official - an ambassador who had to act actively on the international scene in defense of the interests of the Crown he served - provided manuscripts maps of strategic regions about the hinterlands of Brazil to a foreign geographer? Establishing this bilateral relationship was of mutual interest, so we support the thesis that Colombia Prima represents the synthesis of Portuguese geographic knowledge about Brazil, accumulated throughout the eighteenth century. By patronizing this construction, the Viscount of Balsemão intended to use the map's authority to propagandize the limits of the Portuguese possessions in South America, consolidating in the illustrated public opinion the continental limits of Brazil, against a Spanish America that was about to crumble.