Pedro de Medina (1493-1567), was a mathematician, astronomer, and
geographer. He started his career as tutor and librarian to the Dukes of
Medina. He then began to practice cosmography, and became an
examiner of pilots and sailing-masters in Seville in 1539. He was
dissatisfied with the level of teaching and quality of the texts and charts
he taught with, and wrote his ‘Arte del navigare’ to remedy the
deficiency. This was the first European treatise on navigation, which is
why de Medina “may be said to be the founder of the literature of
seamanship” (Church). He was subsequently appointed Royal
Cosmographer in 1549.
The work was very popular – it was one of the three navigational texts
that Sir Francis Drake took on his expedition – and was translated into
several languages. His official position as examiner brought him into
constant contact with sailors and pilots, and the maps are remarkably upto-
date, incorporating discoveries and reports from Spanish expeditions
in the Americas. His map of the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas shows
the mouth of the Mississippi, “R. SPT. SAN.”, and the St Lawrence
River and Gulf. Newfoundland is still shown as a peninsula rather than
an island.