Suma de Geografía

Suma de Geografía

Martín Fernández de Enciso (c. 1470-1528) was a Spanish navigator and geographer from Seville, who was a major figure in the Spanish colonialization of the Isthmus of Panama. His description of an indigenous population who called themselves the “Veneciuela” is believed to be the root of the name of the modern nation of Venezuela. This is just one of the insights to be found in his expansive Suma de Geografía. Printed in a clear and broad Gothic script, the text is adorned with engraved initials, tables, and diagrams, as well as an elegant title page in typical contemporary style.
It was published in 1519 by Jacobo Cromberger (1472/73-1528), a German-born printer who founded a publishing dynasty in Seville during the late 15th century and whose son, Juan Cromberger (d. 1540), founded the first printing press in the Americas. He was influenced by another German printer, Meinardo Ungut (d. 1499), whose widow he married and whose partnership in the printing house with the Pole Stanislaus Polonus he assumed control of. By 1520, Cromberger would already be responsible for ca. 300 editions and became wealthy as a result, eventually printing 39 books for King Manuel I of Portugal (1469-1521) in Lisbon. The Suma de Geographia is not only one of the first books to deal with World Geography, it is one of the most beautiful and renowned to come from Cromberger’s printing press.