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Livro da Marinharia

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Livro da Marinharia
Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Portugais 40
Also known asBook of Seamanship
TypeNautical manual
Datec. 1514
Place of originKingdom of Portugal
LanguagePortuguese
AuthorAnonymous Portuguese pilot
Compiled byTraditionally attributed to João de Lisboa
MaterialPaper
Size37 folios
ContentsNavigation instructions, astronomical tables, hydrographic notes
Previously keptLibrary of the Dukes of Cadaval
Discovered1831 by António Nunes de Carvalho

Livro da Marinharia (Book of Seamanship) is an anonymous Portuguese nautical manual compiled in the early 16th century and traditionally attributed to the pilot João de Lisboa. The surviving manuscript, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Portugais 40, preserves thirty-seven folios of navigational instructions, astronomical tables, and hydrographic notes that illustrate the technical sophistication of Portuguese oceanic navigation at the height of the Age of Discovery.[1][2]

Manuscript

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The manuscript is organized in three parts.[3][4]

  • Navigational rules and rutters provide courses, soundings, and landmark descriptions for voyages to Brazil, the Red Sea, and the Indies
  • Astronomical tables list solar declinations and stellar altitudes required for latitude sailing, together with worked examples of dead-reckoning problems
  • Technical glossaries explain terms such as bujarrona (large square sail) and describe instruments including the balhestilha (cross-staff)

Although the codex no longer contains maps, the rutters quote latitude–longitude pairs derived from contemporary planispheres and reflect the cartometric techniques developed in Lisbon around 1510. The manual demonstrates practical navigation calculations using declination tables and proportional arithmetic to adjust celestial observations. It notably contains one of the first Iberian references to using magnetic variation for course correction.[5]

History

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In the decade after Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498, Portuguese pilots created a corpus of practical handbooks known as roteiros. These works codified experience gained on the Atlantic and Indian Ocean routes and contributed to the professionalization of navigation.[5] Livro da Marinharia belongs to this movement and is usually dated to about 1514 because several tables employ astronomical data for that year.[6]

Livro da Marinharia influenced subsequent Portuguese compilations, including André Pires's enlarged redaction and Bernardo Fernandes's version now in the Vatican Library. The treatise remained a reference for pilots until more advanced nautical tables appeared in the late 16th century.[7]

The codex was once held in the private library of the Dukes of Cadaval. It came to scholarly notice in 1831 when the Portuguese antiquarian António Nunes de Carvalho cataloged the collection.[8] The manuscript was later acquired by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, where it is cataloged as MS Portugais 40.[1]

Jacinto Ignacio de Brito Rebelo produced the first diplomatic edition in 1903. His work established the text as a key witness to Portuguese nautical science.[2] A critical study of variant copies and later inserts was published by Luís de Albuquerque in 1963.[9]

Renewed interest surged in modern scholarship due to online access and new comparative studies of nautical literature.[10] Modern historians note that Magellan's fleet carried a chart of the Brazilian coast copied from a version of Livro da Marinharia. The pilot João Lopes Carvalho, who had used the handbook on earlier Portuguese voyages, was therefore able to guide the Spanish armada southward in 1519.[11]

References

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  1. ^ a b Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des manuscrits, Portugais 40, Biblissima Portal, retrieved 2025-10-20
  2. ^ a b Lisboa, João de (1903), Brito Rebello, Jacinto Ignacio de (ed.), Livro de marinharia: tratado da agulha de marear. Roteiros, sondas, e outros conhecimentos relativos à navegação, Lisbon: Imprensa de Libanio da Silva, retrieved 2025-10-20
  3. ^ Lima, Joana (2022), Modern Editions of Portuguese Maritime Literature: A Bibliography (PDF), RUTTER Technical Notes, Lisbon: ERC RUTTER Project, University of Lisbon, p. 9, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7244237, retrieved 2025-10-20
  4. ^ Figueiredo, Fidelino de (February–August 1926), "The Geographical Discoveries and Conquests of the Portuguese", Hispanic American Historical Review, 6 (1–3): 47–70, doi:10.1215/00182168-6.1-3.47, retrieved 2025-10-20
  5. ^ a b Diffie, Bailey W.; Winius, George D. (1977), Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 142–143, retrieved 2025-10-20
  6. ^ Lima, Joana (2022), Modern Editions of Portuguese Maritime Literature: A Bibliography (PDF), RUTTER Technical Notes, Lisbon: ERC RUTTER Project, University of Lisbon, p. 6, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7244237, retrieved 2025-10-20
  7. ^ Albuquerque, Luís de (1963), O livro de marinharia de André Pires, Lisbon: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, pp. 120–122, retrieved 2025-10-20
  8. ^ Albuquerque, Luís de (1963), O livro de marinharia de André Pires, Lisbon: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, pp. 15–18, retrieved 2025-10-20
  9. ^ Albuquerque, Luís de (1963), O livro de marinharia de André Pires, Lisbon: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, retrieved 2025-10-20
  10. ^ Lima, Joana (2022), Modern Editions of Portuguese Maritime Literature: A Bibliography (PDF), RUTTER Technical Notes, Lisbon: ERC RUTTER Project, University of Lisbon, p. 3, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7244237, retrieved 2025-10-20
  11. ^ Bergreen, Laurence (2003), Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe, New York: William Morrow, pp. 104–105, retrieved 2025-10-20
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