Technical Literature in the Vernacular – 16th Century Nautical Treatises

In 1535 was published in Seville the Tratado del esphera y del arte del marear by Francisco Faleiro, a Portuguese cosmographer in the service of the Casa de la Contratación. This work, based on the Portuguese tradition of the Nautical Guides of Munich and Évora, was important for several reasons. Besides the technical innovations that it presents, such as being the first printed work to address the issue of magnetic declination, this treatise played a key role in the genesis and definition of the new genre of technical literature that emerged in the early sixteenth century in the Iberian Peninsula - the nautical treatises. This type of texts emerged as a consequence of advances in oceanic navigation and of the need for pilots and sailors who knew how to perform it. Thus, these texts are an attempt to compile and organize all the knowledge one needed to the practice of oceanic navigation.

Nautical treatises had the peculiarity of being aimed at a very specific audience - pilots and sailors, who were usually people with low levels of education. It was then necessary to find a simple way to make accessible to this group of people the knowledge needed for astronomical navigation, which included the basics of cosmography and the regiments of navigation.

One of the innovations we see in these type of texts is the language in which they are written. Although they dealt with topics belonging to the intellectual and university sphere (such as cosmography), these works, instead of being written in Latin, were written in the vernacular, as they were intended for uneducated people.

At the beginning of his work, Francisco Faleiro explains his choice for the vernacular:

And, because the wise do not want to descend to write the secrets that they reach in this among them so despised way of speaking, those who do not reach Latinity lack the secrets that are written in it. And since I am not able to eat at the table of the wise and would be content with the part that the Canaanite chose as good, I wanted to write with my rude pen and humble thought, submitting myself to the emendation and correction of better wit, this simple treatise in our Castilian language in this crude style, so that those who, like me, do not reach the polished Latinity, do not for this lack fail to know something by natural reason of the admirable works and marvels of God.

Writing in Latin allowed the works to overcome the physical barriers of their country and to be read by a larger number of people. It might seem, then, that writing in the vernacular would restrict works to their country of origin, not allowing them to circulate. However, this was not the case with the treatises of navigation. Faleiro’s Tratado influenced works such as Pedro de Medina’s Arte de Navegar, or Martín Cortés’ Breve compendio de la sphera y de la arte de navegar, which had numerous editions and translations into other European languages, becoming the models of manuals for other nations that were beginning to navigate the high seas.[Carmo Lacerda]