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MEDINA, Pedro de (1493-1597)
L'arte de navegar. Venice: Gianbattista Pedrezano, 1554.
Rare first Italian edition of the first practical treatise on navigation, originally published in 1545 in Spanish in Valladolid. Medina’s work is the seminal text on navigation in the sixteenth century, and was one of three books on navigation carried by Francis Drake (in the 1554 French translation). It was the first to give reliable information on American waters, as Medina, who is said to have been one of Cortés captains, based his information on the first-hand experiences of pilots and masters of the ships using the Indies trade route. The text remained the standard navigation guide for this route well into the seventeenth-century. It contains a full-page map of the Atlantic and adjacent coastal regions depicting trade routes between Spain and the New World and includes Florida, the mouth of the Mississippi and the area around the gulf of St. Lawrence. (cf. Burden 14). This extremely important map reproduces what was one of the few printed Spanish maps of the period. First issue, with the title-page and colophon dated 1554. Adams M-1025; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 300; Palau 159679; Sabin 47346.
Quarto (214 x 149mm). Woodcuts in text, including large woodcut of ships on title and at front of book 2, and full-page woodcut map of Europe, Africa, and the New World on E1r (upper margin of title excised, some mostly marginal soiling or staining, tiny wormholes to gutter of some gatherings). Later binding using early vellum, titled in manuscript on spine and upper cover (loss to one corner, a few small wormholes, somewhat soiled); housed in modern custom box. Provenance: remains of later label to foot of spine.
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