'España' is emblazoned across the base of her crown and the regions of Spain inscribed above her necklace bears a compass, and the equinoctial line is her staff, from which flies a standard of the Spanish coat-of-arms. Her head is the Iberian peninsula, her flowing robe the Americas, the folds of her dress the Pacific galleon routes at different times of the year, and her feet the Philippine Islands. 1 While at first glance she may appear to be the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception, the universal patroness of Spain and the Indies, closer examination proves her to be the allegorical figure of Hispania. Entitled Aspecto symbolico del mundo hispanico, the illustration presents the Spanish Empire in the figure of a beautiful lady, superimposed on a truncated and vertical world map (illus.1). In 1761 the Tagalog artist and engraver Lorenzo Atlas published in Manila an allegorical illustration to accompany a map of Spanish possessions and explorations, both of which had been prepared by the cartographer Vicente de Memije. Lorenzo Atlas and Vicente de Memije, Aspecto symbolico del mundo hispanico (1761) (London, British Library Maps Collection, K.Top.118.19 by permission of the British Library)
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