Nautical Works

Jacques Devaulx

Jean-Yves Sarazin et al. (eds)

Taschen 

£100

Jacques Devaulx was a pilot at the newly-founded port of Le Havre. An experienced sailor, scholar and cartographer he was commissioned by Anne, Duc de Joyeuse, in 1583 to produce this compendium of navigational knowledge. The Catholic world had just shifted from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar and sailors needed assistance finding the declination of the sun and calculating tides under the new system. Devaulx’s handwritten, illuminated, manuscript combines art, science and engineering in a work of great beauty, reproduced here in facsimile. His guidance concerning latitude, longitude, cosmology and cartography is made accessible by expert commentary in three languages and additional illustrations from museums across the world. An erudite, sumptuous publication. (Not to be used for navigation!)