Pedro de Medina

PEDRO DE MEDINA (c.1493-Seville, 1567),
"Arte de navegar".
Printer, Francisco Fernández de Córdoba. Valladolod, 1545.
Facsimile edited by Ricardo J. Vicent Garcia, Valencia, 2005.
Limited edition.
Numbered, 233/3000.
Measurements: 30.5 x 20.5 x 3 cm.

Full title: "Arte de nauegar en que se contienen todas las reglas, declaraciones, secretos y auisos q[ue] a la buena nauegacio[n] son necessarios, y se deue[n] saber / hecha por el maestro ...".

The Art of Navigation was an immediate success, spreading rapidly throughout Europe. It was translated into French, Italian, German, English and Dutch, reaching more than twenty-seven editions. Since its publication, it has become a training manual for pilots not only in Spain, but also in Europe. The National Library conserves copies of the Spanish, French and Italian editions as valuable items. The same author wrote a second work also dedicated to nautical matters, El regimiento de navegación, published in Seville in 1552. It is a summary, an adaptation of a practical and less complicated nature, of the concepts of the Art of Navigation, written in the form of recommendations and rules and with a language more accessible to sailors. It was intended for teaching the pilots of the Casa de Contratación who were to sail to the Indies. The cosmographer Pedro de Medina lived most of his life in Seville, the center of the Spanish nautical enterprise, and his life was dedicated mainly to the teaching of nautical science as a cosmographer attached to the Casa de Contratación. He sailed on several occasions as a scientist and not as a sailor, in order to put into practice the theories and teachings on navigation that he expounded in his "manuals".