Abstract

Abstract This study expands current knowledge of art and cartography by exploring Alonso de Ovalle’s Tabula geographica regni Chile (1646) as a concluding instance of the pictorial mapping style of the long Renaissance. The project treats the faunal images of the Tabula geographica to explore why beasts still wandered the southern cone in an era when they were inclined to congregate at cartographic borders. It concludes that Ovalle’s lingering creatures were critical elements of a depiction of Chile that was based upon exploration documents and was designed to update the Spanish Crown on this remote and unfamiliar territory.