L'ART DE NAVIGUER DE MAISTRE PIERRE DE MEDINE, ESPAIGNOL: CONTENANT TOUTES LES REIGLES, SECRETS, & ENSEIGNEMENS NECESSAIRES À LA BONNE NAVIGATION...

Lyon: Chez Guillaume Rouille, 1554.. [6],115 leaves plus folding engraved map. Ninety woodcuts, chiefly diagrams but including a scene of ships at sea. Folio. Contemporary calf, rebacked to style, gilt leather label. Corners rubbed. Bookplate on front pastedown. Slight loss at edges of titlepage, neatly repaired; lightly soiled. Minor soiling and (repaired) worming to lower margin throughout. Final two leaves expertly restored. Map with closed tear in gutter margin and two small areas of loss at top margin, neatly repaired; lower margin reinforced. Very good. First edition in French, second issue with the 1554 imprint on the titlepage. Medina's work, first published in Spanish in Valladolid in 1545, was the first practical treatise on navigation. It was also the first work to give reliable information on the navigation of American waters, as Medina - said to have been one of Cortes' captains - based his information on the firsthand experiences of pilots and masters of the ships using the West Indies trade route. This is the second edition overall, and the first translation out of Spanish, enabling the rest of Europe to challenge Spanish hegemony of the seas. It became a popular standard text in the 16th century and was translated into Italian in 1554 and later into English and Dutch. The extremely important map of the Atlantic and adjacent coastal regions, "Novveau monde" by Nicolas de Nicolay, is of high quality and greater detail than the map in the first edition. It depicts the North American coastline from Labrador all the way south to Central and northern South America, labeling Florida and the islands of the West Indies, as well as Mexico and locales in South America. The right side of the map shows Europe and Africa across the Atlantic.

A work of great rarity and importance, and the earliest edition after the extremely rare Spanish first edition, with a highly important map which does not appear there. The Frank Streeter copy realized $78,000 in 2007. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 554/44. PALAU 159669. BURDEN 19. SABIN 47345.