The art of making pictorial statements in a precise and 
repeatable form is one that we have long taken for granted in 
the West. But it is usually forgotten that without prints and 
blueprints, without maps and geometry, the world of modern 
sciences and technologies would hardly exist.

     In the time of Ferdinand and Isabella and other maritime 
monarchs, maps were top-secret, like new electronic discoveries 
today. When the captains returned from their voyages, every 
effort was made by the officers of the crown to obtain both 
originals and copies of the maps made during the voyage. The 
result was a lucrative black-market trade, and secret maps 
were widely sold. The sort of maps in question had nothing in 
common with those of later design, being in fact more like 
diaries of different adventures and experiences. For the later 
perception of space as uniform and continuous was unknown