Twelve Books of Reformed Geography and Hydrography

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Original title: Geographiae et hydrographiae reformatae libri duodecim An encyclopedic Latin folio in twelve books treating the whole science of the earth and its seas. It moves from the elements of mathematical geography and the metrology of ancient and modern feet, paces, stades and miles, through the measurement of terrestrial intervals, itineraries, map construction, terrestrial and celestial coordinates, geodetic surveying, the heights of mountains and clouds, latitude and the determination of longitude, into a long hydrographic book on seas, winds, tides, ports and arsenals, ships and naval offices, shipboard timekeeping and navigation (including tables of loxodromic problems and a specimen sea-journal), then an alphabetical onomasticon matching Latin, ancient and vernacular place-names, and a concluding synoptic book expounding the author's own instrument, the Crux Geographica, composed of two crossed rules and two curved plates laid upon a map with parallel meridians. It closes with an appendix conjecturing the probable number of human beings then living on earth, together with catalogues of cities, universities and geographers and a subject index. Throughout it collates charts, voyage relations and pilots' journals, tabulates them into rules, and marks the grade of certainty attaching to each result, distinguishing geometrical rigour from what suffices in practice. 👉 Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here 📜 View the original source file This text was transcribed and translated as part of the ExLatinis project—an effort by Leo to make English translations of every published text in Latin in early modern Europe (between 1450 and 1750) available to the public for free online.

• Read our introductory primer, full report, and finding guide here
• View the original source file

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