News of the discovery of the rounding of Cape Horn by Jacob Le Maire and Cornelis Schouten in 1615-17 reached Spain shortly after their return. As the region was made even harder to protect against vessels entering the Pacific, King Philip III of Spain immediately organised a voyage to investigate and built two special vessels designed for it in Lisbon. Recruitment for such a dangerous voyage proved difficult so the crew were made up of prisoners and press-ganged individuals. Some of the pilots had been on Le Maire and Schouten’s voyage and the whole voyage was under the command of the Nodal brothers, Bartolome (1574-1622) and Gonzalo (1578-1622), from Galicia.

Sailing from Lisbon in September 1618 they reached Rio de Janeiro in November and undertook repairs before moving on south. They were the first to circumnavigate Tierra del Fuego and managed to return to Spain by July 1619. Remarkably not a single man was lost and the two ships did not lose sight of each other. One of those vessels was the ‘Nuestra Senora de Atocha’ which would sink in a hurricane in 1622 off the coast of Florida. With an estimated 40 tonnes of gold and silver. It was this vessel’s treasure that Mel Fisher would recover in the 1970s. The wreck also took the life of both Nodal brothers.

The resulting map was a considerable advance on that produced by the Dutch. Indeed, copies of the book are so rare that most commentators believe it was supressed by the authorities. Considering its accuracy, it is not surprising. Here a facsimile is included. The Nodal’s returned with precise sailing instructions and accurate observations on the tides. It is considered the first of the Derrotero’s for navigating the Americas. The chief navigator on the voyage was the cosmographer Diego Ramirez de Arellano (c.1580-1624) after whom the islands are named south of Cape Horn. It was the furthest south any European had reached until Captain James Cook in 1775. The map names the strait they sailed through ‘S. Vincent’ but it did not hold and is today called Le Maire Strait.

The title page contains vignette images of the two vessels in the corners and portraits of the two Nodal brothers. Found at the end of the book as Church states is “as usual, has at the end a manuscript monogram, not easily read, but probably “B. G. N.”, Bartholome Garcis de Nodal, and is presumably in his handwriting. The initial front free endpaper bears a long-handwritten description of the voyage in the hand of a José de Villanueva Pico, Capitan de Mar y Guerra. He appears to be the same individual who submitted a request for land in 1735 east-north-east of Montevideo in present day Uruguay. Provenance: First front free endpaper bears manuscript notations in the hand of ‘Dn. Joseph de Villanueva Pico Capitan de Mar y Guerra’, believed to be seventeenth century Mexican ownership; further inscription above effaced; Sotheby’s London 13 November 2003 lot 498; Juan and Peggy Rada Collection. Alden (1980-97) 621/90; Borba de Moraes (1983) p. 616; Buisseret (2007) pp. 1165-7; Church (1907) 386; Hill (1974) pp. 212-14; Howgego (2003) N34; Martinic (1999) pp. 78-80, 106-7; Palau (1948-77) 99485; Sabin (1868-1936) 55394.