Abstract

As the title of this work indicates, we intend to study and analyze whether the Catholic Monarchs commissioned a person to follow a scientific policy when succeeding Christopher Columbus in the direction of the Discovery and Rescue voyages from very early dates.

With this aim we would try to achieve two objectives: the first of them is to unify the numerous studies carried out on the trips and discoveries made by the Spanish in American lands. Secondly, change the trend of disorder that seemed to exist in the Spanish discovery process, using written and graphic sources contemporary with the geographical advances that we study.

To progress in the project, we rely on the cartography that was carried out throughout these first years of discovery, and we will make the New Continent emerge as the corresponding political measures were taken in Spain. We will see the beginning, the birth of that perfectly thought out and structured planning, which we intend to show as a new organized vision of the discovering policy of the monarchy of the Catholic Monarchs entrusted to the religious and statesman Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca.

Keywords:
Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca; discovery policy; catholic monarchs