Compendium Geographicum of Pedro Teixeira

Pedro Teixeira Albernaz (1595–1662) was born into a Portuguese family of cartographers in Lisbon and eventually rose to be the royal cosmographer to Philip III of Spain (1578–1621) and his successor Philip IV (1605–1665). He executed various royal commissions, including mapping the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula. Creating maps requires extensive, meticulous field work and the Portuguese cartographer travelled far and wide in order to execute these meticulous commissions. As its name implies, the Compendium Geographicum is a collection of richly illuminated maps representing the state of contemporary geographic knowledge. It is a synthesis of the cartographer’s body of work and the sum of a lifetime of travel and careful observation.