L'arte del navegar, in laqual si contengono le regole, dechiarationi, secreti, & avisi, alla bona navegation necessarij. Composta per l'Eccel. Dottor M. Pietro da Medina, & tradotta de lingua Spagnola in volgar Italiano, à beneficio, & utilità de ciascadun Navigante
Venice: Aurelio Pincio for Gioanbattista Pedrezano, 1555. First Italian edition, second issue (colophon dated 1554, title-page dated 1555).
Octavo (8” x 5 13/16”, 204mm x 147mm): a8 b4 (b4 blank) A-Q8 R10(–R10) [$4 signed; –a1]. 149 leaves, foll. [12] (title, blank, 4pp. dedication to King Philip of Spain, 4pp. dedication to Stephano Thiepo, 5pp. proem, blank, 6pp. contents, 2pp. blank), I II-CXXXVII. [=pp. xxiv, 274] With many woodcut illustrations integral to the text, including a full-page map (fol. XXXIIIr) and inhabited initials.
Bound in contemporary limp vellum with yapp edges and ties. Title in ink manuscript to spine. Title in ink manuscript to the lower edge of the text-block.
Lower third of the spine and headband repaired with later vellum. Title mostly worn on the spine. Tiers perished. End-papers renewed. Else fine — an unusually bright example. With a bishop’s inkstamps to the recto of the title-page and of the first page of the dedication (a2r).
Pedro de Medina (1493–1567) was a Spanish cartographer in the period of Spain’s growing naval dominance. His Arte de navegar (Valladolid 1545; this first Italian edition is titled in Venetian rather than Italian, which would be L’arte di navigare; this distinction is preserved in the manuscript titles, which on the upper edge is Venetian, on the lower Italian) was the first handbook purely on the subject of navigation. Medina traveled with Hernán Cortés, gaining first-hand experience of the navigating in the waters of America particularly. Although the text is fundamentally a compilation of others’ writings, the importance of the book comes from its illustrations. Woodcuts show, for example, the proper use of an astrolabe and a cross-staff. Numerous charts and diagrams of winds and distances, computations and references — alongside the small format — make the work of real practical value.
The full-page map (XXXIIIr) extends further north, west and south than does the map of 1545, and it is remarkable for its accuracy of Central America in particular, with the Yucatan shown correctly as a peninsula. It features prominently the Tordesillas demarcation line — the result of a Papal negotiation between Spain and Portugal — which divided the New World between those two countries along a meridian variously calculated between 42°.30′W and 49°.45′W.
The stamp is that of a bishop (mantled by a galero with twelve tassels), but his identity is unclear.
Burden 21, Harvard Italian 300, Sabin 47346.
Item #6JLR0195
Price: $12,000