The History of Cartography in Brazil in the 1940s: Jaime Cortesão's Lecture Courses.

The article discusses the history of cartography in Brazil in the 1940s. The significance of Jaime Cortesão's study of early Portuguese maps is well established. Especially notable among his collected papers are the records of a course he taught in Rio de Janeiro from 1944 to 1950 on the history of cartography and the related geopolitical formation of Brazil's national boundaries. One historical theme of great interest to Cortesão was the notion that Brazil had been an integral and insular region from the start. Both in his course and, later, in his publications he stressed that this idea was fundamental to a developing sense of national sovereignty in Brazil.