Suma de geographia...

Practical experience and theoretical knowledge were elegantly combined in Martin Fernandez de Enciso’s pilot’s manual and compendium of world geography, considered to be the most complete geography and navigational tract of its period. Enciso was a geographer and navigator from Seville, who composed his Suma de geografía – originally published in 1519, and thus the first book printed in Spain and in Spanish on the discoveries of the Spanish in the Americas – after spending several years in the Caribbean. Enciso was also instrumental in the colonization of the Isthmus of Darien for the Spanish, setting out in 1510 to join the Spanish navigator Alonso de Hojeda and bringing with him Vasco Nuñéz de Balboa, who had stowed away on his ship. While the JCB owns earlier editions of the work, this 1546 edition was the first one purchased by John Carter Brown himself – in 1846, along with a series of other books that catapulted the collection to world renown.