ABSTRACT

The early modern navigators who guided European merchant ships and naval vessels around the world relied on numerous specialized instruments, from wooden cross-staffs to brass quadrants. This chapter discusses the connections between diverse navigational instruments and printed materials from the mid-sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. It deals with a brief survey of the historiography of instruments, where catalogues of high-end museum collections have given way to studies that focus on either theoretical or material aspects of instruments. The chapter examine the development of the genre of ­nautical manuals in the sixteenth century, which aimed to teach sailors the new observational and computational techniques required by long-distance voyages. Many bookshops also sold instruments; their advertisements shed light on the range of material offered at all price points. The reduced size of portable instruments hindered precise measurements. Even if the instruments themselves were accurate, the boat’s motion could derail any but the roughest of estimates.