The main objective of this symposium on Iberian science in the Early Modern world is to highlight through individual case studies the scientific contribution of the Iberian societies during fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth century that allow us a better and more complete understanding of the history of early modern science. This contribution has some peculiarities not found elsewhere or at another time, such as geographical expansion and the trade relations and technological innovations that were develop for this. These aspects are features of the Iberian expansionist empires developed on a scale impossible to run during the Middle Age.

These global ventures were based in peripheral sciences as nautical astronomy, cosmography, natural history, cartography or navigation, empirical practices on which Portugal and Spain raised their Catholics empires, shaped the new imago mundi, established shipping routes to the East and West, stimulated the creation of new transoceanic economies, created new validation mechanism of scientific knowledge, and mobilized a new form of organization of this knowledge in modernity.

The singularity of the so-called Iberian Science in the Age of Discovery and expansion took place in centers of power and knowledge situated between the Mediterranean and Atlantic -in Seville, Lisbon and Madrid-, and was based in institutions or centers of knowledge production -specific mapping workshops, schools of navigation or academies of mathematics-, artifacts or technological support that facilitated the domination and maintenance of the colonial territories -vessels, astrolabes, nautical charts, regiments or other scientific treatises- jobs, occupation or scientific positions -mapmakers, engravers, astronomers, makers of nautical instruments, cosmographers, pilots or naturalist-, and the publication of books in vernacular language that would become very important for competing powers. In this context, we should say that Iberian science was an activity sponspored by the State and it was developed around ‘intermediate figures’, especially cosmographers.

In short, the new theoretical approaches that we have today at our disposal, from studies of visual and material culture of science, allow us to rethink what was the role played by Portuguese and Spanish artisans in the broader context of the early modern science. The documentary sources of the Iberian world are real testimonials about how, where and under what conditions scientific knowledge was produced in the preliminary stages of the early revolution of the European sciences.