Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de navegar--con nuevos instrumentos y reglas--exemplificado con muy subtiles demonstraciones

CORTÉS, Martin (1510-1582)

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Titolo: Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de...

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Legatura: Hardcover

Edizione: 1st Edition

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Seville: Anton Alvarez, 1551. Folio. (11 1/4 x 7 7/8 inches). 95,[3] leaves. Title printed in red and black with large woodcut Spanish royal arms and architectural surround, 32 woodcut diagrams and illustrations (including a full-page map "Nuevo Mundo" on the recto of leaf LXVII), 2 large woodcut initials, numerous small initials. (Lacks the volvelles, two small rust holes in lower part of title, lower outer corner of title repaired, small blank sections of foremargins of leaves lxxxvi and lxxxvii torn away with no loss of text, upper margin of leaf lxvii shaved with loss of head line and leaf number, similar partial loss to leaf number xxii). Early 18th-century vellum, early manuscript titling to spine, modern brown morocco box, lined with kid leather. "The most complete statement of navigational science to date" ("Printing and the Mind of Man"): first edition of this groundbreaking early work on navigation, with mention of discoveries in the Americas and featuring a highly important early map of the Americas. The map of the New World or "Nuevo Mundo" that Cortes included with his treatise had first appeared in Medina's Arte de Navigar in 1545. Burden notes that the map is based on firsthand knowledge, as Medina travelled with Cortes. The map shows the east coast of the Americas from Canada to just below the bulge of South America, with the mouth of the Mississippi River clearly visible. "The map depicts the trade routes to and from Spain and her possessions by the use of ships heading south-westerly on the outward bound journey and returning via the Gulf Stream to the north-east. The Papal demarcation line dividing the Americas between Portugal (the land to its east) and Spain (to its west) runs vividly through the map, illustrating for the first time the future influence that the former was to have over the country we know of as Brazil. Central America and particularly the Isthmus of Panama are shown remarkably accurately, and the Yucatan is shown correctly as a peninsula.A clearly identifiable Gulf of St. Lawrence begins to take shape following the voyages of Jacques Cartier" ( Burden). The text includes early and significant information about American locations, including Brazil, Peru, Rio de la Plata, and elsewhere. Martin Cortés de Albacar was a cosmographer descended from a prominent Aragon family. His book was a great advance over Pedro Medina's better-known Arte de Navegar (1545) and it was Cortes who inspired William Bourne to write Regiment of the Sea (1574), the first printed original treatise on navigation by an Englishman. Cortes's work is divided into three parts: an initial section on the cosmos, the size of the earth, and geographical climates; a second section on the courses of the sun and moon, the seasons, tides and weather; and a final part on practical navigation and the construction of navigational instruments. The text includes a table of the sun's declination for four years, and another of the distance between meridians at every degree of latitude. "His instructions for making charts and for plotting courses of ships on them were widely followed. Most important of all, he first understood and described the magnetic variation of the compass, suggesting that the magnetic pole and the true pole of the earth were not the same" (Printing and the Mind of Man). Cortes's work was translated into English in 1561 and became a fundamental tool for British navigators as Great Britain became the world's dominant ocean-going power. Printing and the Mind of Man 76; Sabin 16966; European Americana 551/16; Borba de Moraes 1, p.219; cf. Burden 14 (Medina printing of the map); JCB (3) 1:163; Medina (BHA) 145; Palau 63378. Codice inventario libreria 19431