In a 16 July 1577 letter to Philip II’s powerful secretary, Mateo Vázquez, the Chief Cosmographer-Chronicler of the Indies Juan López de Velasco (c. 1530–1598) expressed his pleasure (‘para mi fue de mucho contento’) in receiving the go-ahead on a matter pertaining to the description of Spain. In the same missive, López de Velasco refers also to a similar project for the Indies, noting that in that regard things are further along and that the only detail pending is the king’s signature. The matters referenced in López de Velasco’s communication with his superior and patronMateo Vázquez are in fact the foundations of the cosmographical projects that have come to be known as the Relaciones geográficas de Indias and the Relaciones topográficas de España. In the last quarter of the sixteenth century both of these projects converged in the person and undertakings of Juan López de Velasco, and more specifically in the questionnaires he prepared to get those Crown projects off the ground. Modern scholarship has also stressed the coming together of these ventures under López de Velasco’s stewardship as well as the legalistic underpinnings of those projects, rooted as they were in the structural and legal reforms of Council of the Indies in the late 1560s (Portuondo 2009; Brendecke 2012; Bustamante 2000). What remains unexplored, however, is how the questionnaires in those projects are related to other factmaking documents common to the legal-bureaucratic system of the Hispanic monarchy, like informaciones and probanzas. In the following pages, I flesh out that relationship and argue that the questionnaires not only draw their legitimacy from legalistic underpinnings, they are indeed genealogically linked to official documents such as informaciones and probanzas, legal instruments which sought to ascertain matters of fact and to establish firm grounds for claims to ‘truth.’ The questionnaires and their legalistic infrastructure developed as a result of the convergence of traditional of humanist learning and administrative state culture, in the intersecting spaces of royal court and monarchical government. The questionnaire which López de Velasco prepared for Castile is dated at the Escorial on 7 August 1578. The royal order that serves as a preliminary text to the questionnaire includes an explicit reference to a previous inquiry form of October 1575. The decree explains that the latest 1578 questionnaire is intended to continue the information-gathering endeavor begun in Spain three years before. In regard to the Indies, in his role as cronista y cosmógrafo mayor de Indias, López de Velasco prepared the first questionnaire in 1577 and in substantially the same form again in 1584 (Portuondo 2009, 213). Although at first sight the dates themselves confer chronological priority to the

中文翻译：

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宇宙学描述、法律和事实制定：胡安·洛佩斯·德·贝拉斯科 (Juan López de Velasco) 的美国和半岛调查问卷

在 1577 年 7 月 16 日给菲利普二世强大的秘书马特奥·巴斯克斯的一封信中，印度首席宇宙学家兼编年史胡安·洛佩斯·德·贝拉斯科（Juan López de Velasco，约 1530-1598 年）表达了他很高兴（'para mi fue de mucho contento'）收到继续讨论与西班牙的描述有关的问题。在同一封信中，洛佩斯·德·贝拉斯科 (López de Velasco) 还提到了印度群岛的一个类似项目，并指出在这方面事情进展顺利，唯一悬而未决的细节是国王的签名。López de Velasco 与他的上司和赞助人Mateo Vázquez 的交流中提到的事项实际上是后来被称为 Relaciones geográficas de Indias 和 Relaciones topográficas de España 的宇宙学项目的基础。在 16 世纪的最后四分之一，这两个项目都集中在胡安·洛佩斯·德·贝拉斯科 (Juan López de Velasco) 的个人和事业中，更具体地说，是他准备启动这些皇冠项目的调查问卷。现代学术界还强调了这些项目在 López de Velasco 的管理下的结合，以及这些项目的法律基础，因为它们植根于 1560 年代后期印度委员会的结构和法律改革（Portuondo 2009; Brendecke 2012 年；布斯塔曼特 2000 年）。然而，仍有待探索的是，这些项目中的调查问卷如何与西班牙君主制的法律官僚体制中常见的其他事实制定文件相关，如信息和宣传。在以下页面中，我充实了这种关系，并认为调查问卷不仅从法律基础中汲取其合法性，而且确实在系谱上与官方文件相关，例如信息和 probanza，这些法律文书旨在确定事实问题并为索赔建立坚实的基础。 '真相。' 问卷及其法律基础设施的发展是人文主义学习传统和行政国家文化在皇家法院和君主政府的交叉空间中融合的结果。López de Velasco 为卡斯蒂利亚准备的问卷日期是 1578 年 8 月 7 日在埃斯科里亚尔宫。作为问卷初步文本的皇家命令包括明确提及 1575 年 10 月的一份调查表。该法令解释说，最新的 1578 份问卷旨在继续三年前在西班牙开始的信息收集工作。关于印度，作为 cronista y cosmógrafo 市长 de Indias，López de Velasco 在 1577 年准备了第一份问卷，并在 1584 年再次以基本相同的形式（Portuondo 2009, 213）。虽然乍一看日期本身赋予了时间顺序的优先权