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Pedro Antonio  Cerviño (1757-1816) was born in Pontevedra, Galicia and educated as an engineer in El Ferrol.   Cerviño emigrated to Buenos Aires in 1772 as part of the boundary commmision with Brazil. 

Cerviño, a Galician navigator, engineer and topographer who sailed to Argentina during the colonial era, when he was 25 years old. He sailed up the Uruguay River and reached Rio de la Plata in the 1780's, pubishing his Nuevo Aspecto del Comercio del Río de la Plata, on of the earliest comprehensive works on the region.  At the request of Viceroy Aviles, he prepared a survey and plan of Buenos Aires in 1801,  while he also worked as a journalist and scientist.  

Cerviño's home was a major gathering point for Argentine culture and intellectuals in Buenos Aires. However, in 1806 he fell out of favoor following a speech he gave as the Minister of the Indies, and he consequently lost his job. Nevertheless, repeated his work in the defense of Buenos Aires during invasions carried out by the English earned him back the reputation.  He served as editor of Buenos Aire's second newspaper and was very active both politically and militarily during the period of Argentina's push to independence.

In 1814, he produced a new topographical map of Buenos Aires, one of the most important early maps of Buenos Aires.