Carta particolare del mare del Sur che comincia con l’Isole di Salamone e finiscie con la costa di Lima nel’Peru: la longitudino comincia da l’Isola di Pico d’Asores, Asia Carta, XXIII

Rare , c.17th large scale sea chart of the northern reaches of the South Pacific, extending from the Solomon Islands to the coast of Peru by Robert Dudley (1547-1649).

Dudley was the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. Soon after 1605 he left for Italy where he remained for the rest of his life with his wife and cousin Elizabeth Southwell, becoming naval advisor to Cosimo de’ Medici and Ferdinand II.

In its southern portion it bears annotations concerning the conjectural and imperfectly known coastline. At the bottom are a number of notes regarding the winds and a reference to Terra Australis Incognita. The Solomon Islands are prominently placed in the north-west, with additional island groups plotted far to the east.

The chart if  from Robert Dudley’s Arcano del Mare, (Secrets of the Sea) one of the greatest atlases ever produced. The Arcano del Mare was the first sea atlas of the world on Mercator’s projection and first to include magnetic variation, currents and prevailing winds. The engraver of the charts Anton Francesco Lucini (1610 – after 1661), worked on the plates in seclusion for twelve years in an obscure Tuscan village, using  5,000 lbs of copper. The Arcano del mare took forty years to prepare and twelve to execute. It is an encyclopedia of everything connected with the sea from shipbuilding to navigation to cartography.

From: Dudley, R. Dell’Arcano del Mare