CORTÉS, Martin (fl. 1551). Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de navegar--con nuevos instrumentos y reglas--exemplificado con muy subtiles demonstraciones... Seville: Anton Alvarez, 1551.
CORTÉS, Martin (fl. 1551). Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de navegar--con nuevos instrumentos y reglas--exemplificado con muy subtiles demonstraciones... Seville: Anton Alvarez, 1551. 2 o (284 x 202 mm). Woodcut map of the New World and Atlantic Ocean showing the line of demarcation on H3r, illustrations in text. (Lacking volvelles, lower corner of title renewed, 2 rust holes on title, some headlines cropped, some occasional pale staining.) 18th-century? vellum over pasteboard; morocco folding case. FIRST EDITION of this important text, which includes early information about places discovered in America, such as Peru, Brazil, Rio de la Plata and others: "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" ( PMM ). When it appeared in English translation in 1561, Cortes's book provided Elizabethan navigators their first key to the mastery of the sea. While the book was eventually superceded by the work of Mercator and Wright, it is significant that an entire chapter of the latter's Errors in Navigation is a translation from Cortes (see lot 534). The author was a Spanish cosmographer of an ancient Aragon family but little about his life is known. The third part of the work deals with practical navigation and includes rules for the construction and use of cross-staffs, astrolabes and compasses. "Extremely rare... It is a book of grand and sumptuous appearance, printed in very large Gothic type with thirty-two lines to the page. This work revolutionised the science of Navigation, and was the first to point out the deflection of the needle. The date at which it was written appears in some of the passages of the earlier part of the book as 1545, but a year or two probably elapsed before the author could finish it and get it ready for the press. The instructions for map-making are not the least interesting part of the text, and would be found useful by many persons who are unable to understand the principle of the wind-roses and rhumb-lines which cover the surface of old hydrographic charts. But even here the acute intelligence of Cortes indicated the defects of the plane systems long before Mercator" (Quaritch Little Catalogue of Geography, Americana, Voyages , 1895). THE BOOK IS EXCEEDINGLY RARE IN ALL EARLY EDITIONS AND CONDITIONS. According to American Book Prices Current , the last copy sold at auction was an imperfect copy sold at Christie's London, 30 May 1984. Prior to that was the Honeyman copy, also with a volvelle in facsimile and a supplied leaf, sold at Sotheby's London, 30 April 1979. Due to the nature of the book's subject and the tendency to put such texts to hard use, the work is scarcely to be found complete. Borba de Moraes I:185-6; Burden 14 (the Medina printing of the map); Heredia 542; JCB (3) I:163; Medina (BHA) 145; Palau 63378; PMM 76; Sabin 16966 ("A volume of great rarity, frequently reprinted. A map of the New World is on the recto of the sixty-seventh leaf"); Salva 3763.
CORTÉS, Martin (fl. 1551). Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de navegar--con nuevos instrumentos y reglas--exemplificado con muy subtiles demonstraciones... Seville: Anton Alvarez, 1551.
CORTÉS, Martin (fl. 1551). Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de navegar--con nuevos instrumentos y reglas--exemplificado con muy subtiles demonstraciones... Seville: Anton Alvarez, 1551. 2 o (284 x 202 mm). Woodcut map of the New World and Atlantic Ocean showing the line of demarcation on H3r, illustrations in text. (Lacking volvelles, lower corner of title renewed, 2 rust holes on title, some headlines cropped, some occasional pale staining.) 18th-century? vellum over pasteboard; morocco folding case. FIRST EDITION of this important text, which includes early information about places discovered in America, such as Peru, Brazil, Rio de la Plata and others: "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" ( PMM ). When it appeared in English translation in 1561, Cortes's book provided Elizabethan navigators their first key to the mastery of the sea. While the book was eventually superceded by the work of Mercator and Wright, it is significant that an entire chapter of the latter's Errors in Navigation is a translation from Cortes (see lot 534). The author was a Spanish cosmographer of an ancient Aragon family but little about his life is known. The third part of the work deals with practical navigation and includes rules for the construction and use of cross-staffs, astrolabes and compasses. "Extremely rare... It is a book of grand and sumptuous appearance, printed in very large Gothic type with thirty-two lines to the page. This work revolutionised the science of Navigation, and was the first to point out the deflection of the needle. The date at which it was written appears in some of the passages of the earlier part of the book as 1545, but a year or two probably elapsed before the author could finish it and get it ready for the press. The instructions for map-making are not the least interesting part of the text, and would be found useful by many persons who are unable to understand the principle of the wind-roses and rhumb-lines which cover the surface of old hydrographic charts. But even here the acute intelligence of Cortes indicated the defects of the plane systems long before Mercator" (Quaritch Little Catalogue of Geography, Americana, Voyages , 1895). THE BOOK IS EXCEEDINGLY RARE IN ALL EARLY EDITIONS AND CONDITIONS. According to American Book Prices Current , the last copy sold at auction was an imperfect copy sold at Christie's London, 30 May 1984. Prior to that was the Honeyman copy, also with a volvelle in facsimile and a supplied leaf, sold at Sotheby's London, 30 April 1979. Due to the nature of the book's subject and the tendency to put such texts to hard use, the work is scarcely to be found complete. Borba de Moraes I:185-6; Burden 14 (the Medina printing of the map); Heredia 542; JCB (3) I:163; Medina (BHA) 145; Palau 63378; PMM 76; Sabin 16966 ("A volume of great rarity, frequently reprinted. A map of the New World is on the recto of the sixty-seventh leaf"); Salva 3763.
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.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
