A fine example of the first Latin edition of the earliest printed sea atlas: complete, with fine contemporary hand-colour in full. First published in Dutch in 1583-1584 as Spieghel der Zeevaerdt, the over-sized map of Europe is in the first state, showing a circular Iceland, all other maps in Koeman state b.

“Waghenaer’s work was a milestone in the development of West European navigation. His charts brought together the pictorial silhouettes that had been a standard feature of traditional rutters used by pilots, and combined these with updated coastal outlines. In addition, there were compass roses and lines of navigational direction, as well as soundings to help navigators make their way into ports and havens” (Schilder).

After a long career at sea, Waghenaer became collector of maritime dues in his hometown of Enkhuizen in 1579. Losing this post in 1582, he began work on what was to become one of the most successful maritime books of its age: a pioneering synthesis of information from manuscript charts, rutters, ships’ logs, all of which he systematized for the first time, illustrated with informative and beautifully engraved charts.

The demand for Waghenaer’s charts required translations for foreign pilots, and this Latin version was only the first, with subsequent translations into English, German, and French. The atlas was “the greatest single advance in the history of hydrographic publication. Within the covers of a single work it provided the seaman with a manual of practical navigation, a set of printed charts on a common scale, covering the coasts and waters of northern and western Europe, and sailing directions which were otherwise only to be found in rutters unaccompanied by charts” (Skelton). Published charts of the coast of Europe were based on Waghenaer’s work for at least a century, and all such later collections of sea charts were called after him “waghenaers” or “waggoners” in English and “chartiers” in French.