A 1614 legal painting of the Bogotá savanna — a story with complex content
By Santiago Muñoz, Adelaida Ávila, and María Alejandra Orduz Avella
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Why was this map drawn?
The Painting of the lands, marshes, and swamps of the town of Bogotá was presented as evidence during a 1614 legal proceeding brought by the crown prosecutor of the New Kingdom of Granada against Francisco Maldonado y Mendoza, a renowned encomendero, over the ownership of lands in the Bogotá savanna.
What does the map show?
The map features the Bogotá savanna, a high plateau on the eastern mountain range of the northern Andes. In the early sixteenth century, the savanna was occupied by the Indigenous Muisca people. A Spanish expedition led by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada arrived there in 1536, and the city became the seat of the audiencia of Santafé in 1549.
Is it a map or a painting?
This unique “legal painting” functions as both map and landscape art. It is rare for being signed by its creator Juan de Aguilar Rendón and uses color, variable scaling, and possibly Indigenous pigments to represent the disputed territory.
Who were the owners of this land?
The estate depicted on the painting belonged to Francisco de Maldonado y Mendoza. His descendants obtained titles of nobility and the estate became the center of the Marquisate of San Jorge, producing viceroys and bishops for two centuries.
Want to keep exploring?
This demo covers just a small part of Colonial Landscapes, a larger project that explores the social and environmental transformations experienced by Indigenous populations and landscapes in present-day Colombia during the 16th and 17th centuries, developed by Santiago Muñoz, Adelaida Ávila, and María Alejandra Orduz Avella, and which inspired Telar.