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Spanish pioneer of the use of the chronometer in navigation and mapping

GALIANO, Dionisio Alcalá.
Memoria sobre las observaciones de latitud y longitud en el mar.
[Madrid], widow of Joaquin Ibarra, 1796. Narrow 4to (20.5 x 14 cm). With a woodcut crowned cypher monogram (of a Spanish Duke?) on the title-page and 7 folding leaves containing 13 numbered letterpress tables. Early 19th-century gold-tooled tree calf. [2], 87, [1] pp.
€ 3,950
Greatly expanded second edition of a treatise on the determination of latitude and longitude at sea, by Dionisio Alcalá Galiano (1760-1805), Spanish explorer, cartographer and captain in the Royal Spanish armada. His much shorter account (26 leaves instead of 45 and without the folding tables) was also printed by the widow Ibarra, in 1795. Galiano was a pioneer of the use of the chronometer in Spain, allowing him to produce far more accurate maps of the Spanish colonies in the Americas. Galiano enrolled in the Spanish naval school in 1775. After graduating in 1779 he participated in hydrographic surveys of the Spanish and South American coasts and other Spanish naval scientific explorations.
Joaquin Ibarra (1725-1785) had been printer to the court of King Carlos III and Spain's greatest printer, vying with Bodoni and the Didots as a fine printer. His widow continued the tradition and upheld the quality of presswork and materials. The present book is well printed on fine Catalan laid paper by Joseph Llorens, who had supplied paper for Ibarra's famous 1780 Cervantes.
A library stamp has been cut out of the title-page and the hole expertly restored, not affecting text or monogram. Otherwise in fine condition, with the paper still crisp. The binding is worn at the hinges but still good. Bibl. Mar. Española 265; Palau 5752 (noting only 6 folding leaves); Houzeau & Lancaster 10540 (1795 ed.); for Galiano: Howgego, to 1800, G6.
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Maritime history  >  Navigation
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