DUDLEY, Robert.

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Arcano del mare. This sea atlas, "arguably the most sumptuous ever produced" (Burden), first published in 1646 when its author, Robert Dudley, was 73, was not only the first sea atlas of the world but also the first to use Mercator's projection, the earliest to show magnetic deviation, the first to show currents and prevailing winds, the first to expound the advantages of "Great Circle Sailing" (the shortest distance between two points on a globe), and "perhaps less importantly the first sea-atlas to be compiled by an Englishman, albeit abroad in Italy" (Wardington). The book is a superb marriage of Dudley's navigational expertise and cartographic excellence, with beautifully engraved charts by Antonio Francesco Lucini.Robert Dudley (1574-1649) was the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, erstwhile favourite of Elizabeth I. His early career as explorer and navigator bears some comparison with Sir Walter Ralegh, whose path crossed his at various points. He left England in 1605, converted to Catholicism, and settled in Florence, where he styled himself duke of Northumberland and earl of Warwick. He designed and built warships for the arsenal of Livorno and became a naval advisor to Ferdinand I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Medici family."In the early 1640s he retired to the Villa di Castello and devoted himself to writing on naval matters, drawing on his experience to compose the encyclopaedic Dell'arcano del mare (1646-7), dedicated to Grand Duke Ferdinand II

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