A framework for visual storytelling. This example explores an allegorical map that reveals more than it first appears to show.

To see how it’s built, peek behind the scenes to see the source and follow along.

This 1761 engraving appears to celebrate the Spanish empire — but as we’ll see, it actually challenges it. Historian Natalie Cobo guides readers through telling details.

Spain is depicted as the head of this imperial project.

The chain is made of ships — it was overseas invasions that expanded the early modern Spanish world.

The American landmass forms an ill-defined cloak covering the allegorical woman.

In stark contrast to the flowing American cloak, the Philippine Islands give concrete form to the woman’s feet.

This allegorical woman is not defined by landmasses but by shipping lanes. Connection, not territory, holds this body together.

Charles III introduced the centralizing Bourbon reforms, which sought to make the colonial realms subordinate political entities whose function was to provide the metropolis with wealth.

Hobbes’s political thesis shows the opposite: the ruler as container of all society, with people who are indistinct and fungible.

Our allegorical woman has no form beyond connection, and the ruler is squeezed into the bottom. This image was produced in Manila by Filipino engraver Laureano Atlas, accompanying Vicente de Memije’s thesis. In context, it stands as a polemical challenge to Charles III’s reforms. This narrative demonstrates how visual storytelling can build scholarly arguments.