Dell'arcano del mare, di D. Ruberto Dudleo duca di Nortumbria, e conte di Warvich, libri sei; Nel primo de' quali si tratta della Longitudine praticabile in diversi modi, d'invenzione dell'Autore, Nel Secondo, delle Carte sue generali, e de' Portolani rettificati in Longitudine, e Latitudine, Nel Terzo, della Disciplina sua Marittima, e Militare. Nel Quarto, dell'Architettura sua Nautica di Vascelli da guerra, Nel Quinto, della navigazione scientifica, e perfetta, cioè Spirale, ò di gran Circoli, Nel Sesto, delle Carte sue Geografiche, e Particolare. Al serenissimo Ferdinando Secondo gran duca di Toscana suo Signore
“THE ONLY EXCEPTION TO THE TOTAL
DOMINANCE OF DUTCH SEA ATLAS PRODUCTION...
ARGUABLY THE MOST SUMPTUOUS EVER PRODUCED."
Florence: Francesco Onofri, 1646. First edition of the first four books.
Folio (12 15/16” x 9 1/8”, 327mm x 233mm): π2 A-O2, 2A-T2, 3A-O2, 4A-K2 [$1 signed]. 116 leaves, pp. [4] (half-title, blank, title, blank), 1-56, 21-76, 31-55, blank, 41-39, blank. With 5 letterpress plates (4 printed recto-verso) and 82 engraved plates: 1 folding plate reproducing Ferdinand II’s patent of nobility, 23 folding plates with volvelles, 3 plates with volvelles, 4 folding plates with string-indicators, 4 folding theoretical charts, 1 theoretical chart, 15 folding charts (i.e., of the world), 7 folding plates of instruments, 3 plates of instruments, 14 folding plates of ships, 2 plates of ships (one of which is mounted to p. 433), 3 folding plates of theoretical fortifications and 2 plates of theoretical fortifications.
Bound in contemporary stabbed limp vellum. On the spine, title in ink manuscript: “DEL/ L’ ARCANO/ Del MARE”. All edges of the text-block speckled red.
Vellum cockled, and a little shrunken at the fore. Split at the upper back fore-corner. Front end-paper splitting, revealing the vellum spine-wrap. Lacking (collated against the Nordenskiöld copy) book I pl. 12 (a volvelle), the 5 letterpress “Effemeridi” to be inserted between pp. 26 and 27, the index (pointer) to book II pl. 2, the half-title and title leaves (2π2) of the second volume (viz. books III-IV), book III pl. 9 (a cross-section of the second ship) and the second leaf of corrections. Rear end-papers and 4K1-2 wormed. Signs of damp at the spine to the end-papers, quire π (with some old reinforcements) and the first plate (patent of nobility). Foxing to quires A-B. Stub tears or fold tears to a handful of plates, though those to the plate opposite pp. 10 and 53 are more substantial, the former affecting the image. Sanguine crayon underlining, marginalia and manicules throughout, and ink marginalia (mostly corrections) to 20 pages.[1] Ink marginalia to nearly all the plates, mostly renumbering, with graphite numbering to the verso of the plates. Ink ownership inscription in an early hand to the title-page: “Es de la libreria reel colegio maior de Cuenca”. Exceptionally sharp impressions of the plates, with all volvelles and strings intact.
Sir Robert Dudley (1574–1649) was the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester and favorite of Elizabeth I, by Douglas, Lady Sheffield. After the death of Leicester’s only legitimate son (also called Robert, known as Baron Denbigh) at the age of 3, a campaign of legitimization began that allowed him to inherit great sums (and the castle of Kenilworth), financing his career as an explorer. In 1594 he set off for the West Indies (to the displeasure of Elizabeth) and had mixed success in harassing the Spanish, though it did provide a good deal of cartographic and navigational experience. In 1596 he commanded the Nonpareil under the Earl of Essex and, for his role in the capture of Cadiz, was knighted. Unsatisfied with the earned honorific, he prosecuted his legitimacy (based on the claim that his parents were married in secret the year before his birth) but his claim was denied in May of 1605; in July he sailed for Tuscany.
While at the court of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, he advised the otherwise land-locked Tuscan duchy on naval policy, developing the port of Livorno and facilitating the only Italian attempt at colonization in the Americas in 1608. Thereafter, having been declared an outlaw by James I, he dedicated himself to writing about his naval experience, and the project that would become Dell’Arcano del Mare (About the Mystery of the Sea) continued through the 1630’s. (Dudley’s autograph manuscript charts (with text) are held now in Munich at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.icon. 138–140 and 221. Divided into four volumes, they demonstrate an altogether different conception of the work than that of the present work; this doubtless accounts for the various and inconsistent numeration.)
Between his own experience as both an explorer and a soldier, as well as the access to cartographic sources afforded by his nobility (the first plate is a facsimile of the patent of nobility granted by Ferdinando II, recognizing him as Earl of Leicester and of Warwick), he was well placed to revolutionize knowledge of seafaring. It has been suggested that he had access to the accounts of Francis Drake and even of Henry Hudson, but both without proof. He certainly had access to those of Sir Thomas Cavendish, the third circumnavigator, whose sister he married.
At the age of 72, Dudley published the first four books of a projected six, covering the principals of navigation, the principals of cartography (with 15 general maps of the world), the principals of maritime discipline and naval warfare, and the principals of the construction of ships and of naval fortifications. Two years later (the title-pages bear 1647 but the colophons indicate publication in 1648), the fifth and six books came out — in a different format — but the work as of 1646 is complete in the present volume. The work of the engravings was carried out by Antonio Francesco Lucini who, in the preface to the second edition of 1661, claims to have taken 12 years and to have used in excess of 5,000 pounds of copper in the preparation of the work.
Particularly compelling, but too often overlooked by bibliographers and cataloguers, are more than 30 volvelles or string-indexed paper instruments, analog computers whose origin goes back as far as the Antikythera mechanism (IIc BC). Unlike depictions of navigational tools, these plates themselves can be used to calculate latitude, time of day, routes of travel and so forth. Given the fragility of some volvelles — with three or four overlapping mechanisms, often with cut-outs — their survival in the present example is particularly remarkable. It points to an untouched volume, which is borne out by the burrs on the engraved lines, still easily detected by the grazing thumb.
Dudley’s Arcano represents a number of firsts: the first sea-atlas compiled by an Englishman, the first atlas with all charts uniformly on the Mercator projection, the first to show harbor winds and currents, the first to give magnetic declination. The third chart, “Carta prima Generale d’ America dell’ India Occidêtale è [sic] Mare del Zur” (Burden 266) contains the first printed sea chart of the West coast of North America. Burden (loc. cit.) crowns it “the only exception to the total dominance of Dutch sea atlas production… Arguably the most sumptuous [sea atlas] ever produced.”
The extensive underlining and marginalia in sanguine crayon point to an early reader; comments are largely in Latin (e.g., “abest” on p. 313). In places the annotator warns subsequent readers: “caute lege,” read with caution; this suggests an institutional setting, perhaps even the hand of a censor. The Colegio Mayor de Cuenca, founded in Salamanca in 1510, is one of the six “classical” Spanish colleges, and among the oldest. Its library benefitted from the collecting of the humanist and noted bibliophile Lorenzo Ramírez de Prado (1583–1658). Acquired at the sale of Robert Harbison Power (1926–1991), Christie’s New York 8 November 1996, lot 71. Power was a historian of the California coast, with a particular interest in Drake.
Burden, North America 266 & 267; Nordenskiöld I:70; Phillips, Library of Congress 458.
[1] I: pp. 15, 31, 43; II: pp. 3, 7, 11, 62, 75, 76; III: pp. 13, 16, 19, 21, 28, 35, 36; IV: pp. 5, 34, 36, 38.
Item #JLR0578
Price: $185,000