Arcano del Mare

World Sea-atlas by Robert Dudley, six books in two volumes. Second edition

Type of object:

Atlases

Time period:

Britain rules the waves & France

Place:

Florence Italy

Date:

1661

Maker / Author:

Robert Dudley (1573–1649) was the son of the Earl of Leicester (the one time favourite of Elizabeth I) and Lady Douglas Sheffield

Publisher / Printer:

Florence, Giuseppe Cocchini [for Jacopo Bagononi and Anton Francesco Lucini]

Dimensions:

Binding: 44 x 57,5 cm
Each double paged map: 750 by 510mm

Material:

217 engravings on 146 sheets, 15 nautical charts (Portulan) and 131 nautical charts.
66 engravings contain 1 or more volvelles (99 moveable parts on this copy ;some are not hollowed out).
Printed on high-quality paper, sometimes thick and very white.

Graduation:

n/a

Inscription:

Arcano del Mare Tome I en Tome II

Provenance:

There's a signed name on the title pages, “Leguay” (17th or 18th century)
Was 80 years, or three generations, in French collection

References:

Lord Wardington, 'Sir Robert Dudley and the Arcano del Mare',
The Book Collector 52 (2003), pp.199-211.

See full item list

Description

1/ The first sea-atlas of the whole world
2/ The first atlas with all the charts using Mercator’s projection
3/ The first to give prevailing winds and currents
4/ The first to give magnetic declination
5/ The first to expound the benefits of ‘Great Circle Sailing’

"One of the greatest atlases of the world and one of the most complex ever produced" (Wardington).
The Arcano del mare is an innovative marine treatise, enhanced by numerous engravings, with moving parts (on 146 engraved leaves) and 146 nautical charts.
This encyclopedia of great erudition is a reference in astronomical navigation calculations, map drawings, ship construction and sea battles.
It was also the first atlas to bring together nautical charts from around the world, the first to base these maps on the map projections used by Mercator, and the first to indicate winds, currents, and magnetic deviations.
The atlas is divided into six books, or sections: book one deals with longitude; book two covers errors in the then-existing sea charts, and includes the portolano for the Mediterranean and 15 general maps; book three deals with naval and military discipline, notably the former, and there is a long section on naval tactics, especially remarkable for a plan of the construction of a navy in five grades of vessel; book four describes the method of designing and building ships of the "Galerato" and "Galizaba" types and is concerned with naval architecture, giving the lines and dimensions of ships; book five is devoted entirely to navigation and methods of measuring the sun's declination and the relative positions of the stars; book six contains the sea atlas.
For the beautifully engraved charts, Dudley employed the services of Antonio Francesco Lucini. Lucini states in the atlases that the work took him 12 years to complete and required 5,000lbs of copper. The charts are by English and other pilots, and it is generally accepted that the work was both scientific and accurate for the time. It is assumed that Dudley used the original charts of Henry Hudson, and for the Pacific Coast of America used his brother in-law Thomas Cavendish's observations.