''Suma de Geographia'' ( ''Suma de Geografía''; ) is a Spanish book on

cosmography The term cosmography has two distinct meanings: traditionally it has been the protoscience of mapping the general features of the cosmos, heaven and Earth; more recently, it has been used to describe the ongoing effort to determine the large-sca ...

, geography, and maritime navigation written by

Martín Fernández de Enciso Martín Fernández de Enciso ( 1470 – 1528) was a Spanish lawyer, colonial official and geographer. He was instrumental in the colonization of the Isthmus of Darien, one of Spain's earliest attempts to occupy the mainland of the Americas. His ...

and published in 1519 in

Seville Seville ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Guadalquivir, ...

. ''Suma'' is deemed the first pilot's manual to comprehensively describe the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

as then understood by the Spanish and Portuguese. It is further noted as the first appearance in print of the Spanish '' requerimiento'', and as a seminal work in Spanish navigational guides of the period.

Background

Martín Fernández de Enciso is thought to have begun writing his ''Suma de Geographia'' in Spain by at least 1518. Enciso was granted a

printing patent The printing patent or printing privilege was a precursor of modern copyright. It was an exclusive right to print a work or a class of works. History Origins The earliest recorded printing privilege dates from 1469, giving John of Speyer a fi ...

for ''Suma'' in

Zaragoza Zaragoza (), traditionally known in English as Saragossa ( ), is the capital city of the province of Zaragoza and of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributaries, the ...

on 5 September 1518. The work was first published in Seville in mid-to-late 1519 by Jacobo Cromberger. A revised edition was published in Seville in 1530 by Juan Cromberger, and later first reprinted posthumously in Seville in 1546 by Andrés de Burgos. A English edition, ''A briefe description of the weast India'', was first published in London in 1578 by Henry Bynneman.

''Suma'' is deemed to consist of two parts, a cosmographical (cum nautical), and a geographical one, in that order. The cosmographical treatise expounds on the configuration and functioning of the ( Ptolemaic, geocentric) universe, and further provides practical guidance on maritime navigation. The geographical discourse presents select human and physical features of the Old and (known) New Worlds, as split by the

Tordesillas meridian The Treaty of Tordesillas, signed in Tordesillas, Spain, on 7 June 1494, and ratified in Setúbal, Portugal, divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between the Kingdom of Portugal and the Crown of Castile, along a meridian west of t ...

through

El Hierro El Hierro (), nicknamed ''Isla del Meridiano'' (the "Meridian Island"), is the farthest south and west of the Canary Islands (an autonomous community of Spain), in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, with a population of 11,659 (2023). ...

Legacy

''Suma'' has been deemed the first pilot's manual in Spanish, and the first such for the New World. It is further noted as the first print book to include the Spanish ''requerimiento''. It is thought to have been particularly influential for later Spanish works on maritime navigation.

Background

Contents

Legacy

See also

Notes and references

Explanatory footnotes

Short citations

Full citations