The Royal Register, the greatest secret in history

Jorge Juan, the giant

Jorge Juan Santacilia, born in 1713, was one of those giants who makes any movie hero seem small. This humanist, sailor, naval engineer, scientist, spy, and ambassador fought in various campaigns against all the enemies of the crown. He participated in the measurement of the Earth’s meridian alongside an expedition sent to the Viceroyalty of Peru by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris.

Later, he spent almost twenty years in the Indies studying the organisation of the viceroyalties.

Upon his return, the Marquis of Ensenada sent him on a secret mission to London to study the Royal Navy and its shipbuilding methods in detail. Thanks to his vast technical and scientific knowledge, he began sending encrypted letters to the Marquis of Ensenada, providing detailed reports on his progress. He copied the plans, techniques, and materials, and even convinced several English naval engineers and workers to travel to Spain to build for the Spanish crown. Eventually, he was discovered and forced to flee. Upon his return, a new era of naval glory and the resurgence of the Spanish Navy began.

But that wasn’t enough for him. In 1757, Charles III tasked him with building the Royal Observatory of Madrid, one of the largest and most advanced of its time, which would later be destroyed by Napoleon’s French forces—perhaps out of envy?

Why are taxis called that?

As it is often said, information is power. Having it before anyone else is even more powerful. For this reason, all the kings and rulers throughout history have sought to obtain it as quickly as possible.

The powerful Tassis or Taxis family, pioneers of postal services in Lombardy and Central Europe, arrived in Castile through Joanna I of Castile and Philip the Handsome. With the ascension to the throne of their son Charles I, information became more valuable than gold, and the emperor expanded the monopoly granted to the Taxis by his parents to send and receive mail from all his kingdoms and states, including the Indies.

The legacy of the Lombard family is still alive today across half the world, as we continue to refer to the cars with drivers we take daily by their surname. Additionally, the horse riders of the Taxis were the first to use the postal horn to signal their arrival at the post houses, so that horses could be prepared as quickly as possible.

To make themselves more visible, they wore yellow clothing. Both elements remain identifying symbols for much of the world’s postal services.

Jean Fleury. The greatest stroke of luck in history

Here’s the translation into British English:—In 1522, a Florentine corsair in the service of French King Francis I, known as **Jean Fleury** by the Castilians, was patrolling near the Azores, lying in wait for the return of Spanish ships coming from the Indies, when he had the greatest stroke of luck of his life. His flotilla of six ships encountered the three that were carrying part of the legendary treasure that Hernán Cortés had sent to **Charles I**. He captured two of the three ships, finding in their holds the fabulous loot of the last emperor of the Mexicas… however, the true treasure was not the pearls, gold, clothing, or silver… beyond the exuberant shine of the jewels, the most valuable thing they found was not in the holds but in the navigation chamber: the Spanish maps marking the routes and directions to reach the coveted Indies.The illustration is part of a painting displayed in the **Naval Museum of Madrid**, depicting the naval battle of **Pernambuco** or **Abrojos** (1631), painted by **Juan de la Corte**.

The legendary Padrón Real

After the formation of the House of Trade in 1503, the largest school of navigation and seamanship in all of Europe was established. It was something akin to the 16th century NASA. Gradually, they created the secret map that contained the necessary information for going to and returning from the Indies. The top positions of the House were held by prominent sailors, who were responsible for charting that legendary secret map: the Padrón Real. It documented and recorded everything that was discovered. It was said to hang in a room, constantly guarded by officers of the House. All the mathematicians, cosmologists, astrologers, cartographers, explorers, masters, and pilots who went to the Indies—true scientists of the time—brought back one of the pillars that supported the Spanish empire: their maps.Unfortunately, no original of the Padrón Real has survived.The illustration is believed to be a copy that the Portuguese cosmographer Diego Ribero, who served the House of Trade, made in 1529. If the map is enlarged, one can read:“Universal chart containing everything that has been discovered of the world up to now, made by Diego Ribero, cosmographer to His Majesty, year 1529, in Seville.”

Orbis Terrae Compendiosa

The Vital Importance of Spanish Maps

But why was it so important to keep the Spanish maps secret? The answer is simple. It’s worth remembering that, after acquiring Spanish maps, the English established themselves in Jamestown in 1607, the French in Quebec in 1608, and the Dutch in Fort Nassau in 1615—123 years after the Castilians arrived in America. It’s like if, after the U.S. landed on the moon in 1969, the Chinese, Russians, Indians, or Europeans—today’s leading technological powers—arrived in 2092! These powers settled in the north not because they liked it more, but because Spanish hegemony wouldn’t allow them to do so anywhere else. Only Portugal, the other naval superpower, was able to establish itself on the coasts of Brazil in 1500. The rest of the European powers didn’t have the necessary means for such an enterprise. The only thing they were capable of was launching swift pirate attacks against the Spanish settlements.The illustration corresponds to the world map created by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1587.

The Royal Padrón, a Living Map

It is important to note that the Royal Padrón was a “living map.” Expedition after expedition, voyage after voyage, it grew and enriched with details, reliefs, coasts, islands, winds, currents, newly formed cities, places to anchor in case of storms, and more knowledge that the Castilians acquired about the new lands.

The House of Trade never gave the pilots a complete copy of the Royal Padrón, but rather a fragment of the area where they were going to navigate their ships.The marvelous map by the famous Castilian mariner and cosmographer Juan de la Cosa is kept in the Naval Museum of Madrid and was created in 1500 at the Port of Santa María.

The Forbidden Book of Juan Escalante de Mendoza

The most perfect compendium of navigation to the Indies ever written.

This book is a secret kept for more than four centuries.The adventurer, cartographer, and sailor Juan Escalante de Mendoza wrote a navigation book to the Indies based on his own experiences. He was a man born for what he lived: to sail. He had extraordinary skills, talent, and abilities related to navigation. So much so that, as a child, he left his native Asturias for Seville, and by the age of 18, he was already sailing on his own ships. On at least eight occasions, he made the daring journey of the Carrera de Indias, the last of them in 1595 as the Captain General of the Armada and Fleet of New Spain, being a striking example of meritocracy, showing how a young boy who started as a page or cabin boy, with the passage of time and through his own merits and expertise, became the Captain General of one of those fleets. Unfortunately, it was his final voyage, as the following year he would die in Nombre de Dios, in present-day Panama.

His great legacy was his book, completed in 1575, “Ytinerario de navegación de los mares y tierras occidentales.” It was a navigation compendium to the Indies so complete and perfect that the Casa de la Contratación prohibited its printing and dissemination due to the danger of such a detailed work falling into the hands of corsairs or other enemies of the Crown. The book, which is very engaging, is written in the form of a dialogue between a young man and the pilot of the ship on which he is traveling to the Indies. It contains, in exquisite detail, the nautical, cartographic, astronomical, meteorological, military, cosmographic, and humanistic knowledge necessary for the execution of the Carrera de Indias. The original work is housed in the library of the Naval Museum, and it wasn’t until 1985 that this institution published the transcription of the original manuscript.