Lucas Waghenaer (1534 - 1605)

Lucas Waghenaer

Lucas Waghenaer, full name Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, was a famous Dutch cartographer, navigator, navigator and writer of the Golden Age.

Between 1550 and 1579, Waghenaer sailed the seas as a senior assistant captain and probably socialized with Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian navigators. The knowledge of nautical charts and the instructions Waghenaer received as a result of these contacts had a great influence on his later work as a cartographer. It is evident that the charts he made had to be based on his observations, and in all his work he had to draw on his own extensive experience of practical navigation. His book Spieghel der Zeevaerdt ("The Navigator's Mirror") or Speculum nauticum super navigatione, first published in 1584, occupies a unique place among the nautical printed works of the sixteenth century, for it is the first printed work with maps.

Moreover, in terms of the magnificent design of the maps and text, it surpasses all other editions of this period and served as a model for pilotage guides and folios with maps even a century later. It is an atlas of nautical charts with instructions for navigation in the western and northwestern coastal waters of Europe. Thanks to the unrivaled skill of engravers Baptiste and Johannes van Deitekom, Waghenaer's original maps were transformed into the most beautiful maps of the time. This book was a huge success, reprinted several times and translated into English, German, Latin and French.

In 1592, Waghenaer's second pilot book Thresoor der zeevaert ("Treasure of Navigation") was published, and in 1598, the third and last publication Enchuyser zeecaertboeck ("Enkhuizen Book of Nautical Charts").