Despite its long maritime heritage, Spain (and Portugal) lagged behind the rest of Europe in terms of chart publishing. Vicente Tofiño De San Miguel (1732-1795) was a Spanish mariner and chart-maker, who published the first printed Spanish sea-atlas, the Atlas maritimo de Espana, 1787 [-1789]. This volume is one part of the Atlas maritimo de Espana’, containing only those charts of the Atlantic coasts of Spain and north-western Africa, with a series of charts of the major harbours, including Vigo Bay, Bilbao and Cadiz.
This was the most important sea-atlas of Spanish coastal waters and facing coast of Africa of the period, rendered particularly important by the naval operations during the war between Britain and Spain. This a very good example of the atlas, with the charts and plates in good dark impressions.
A British owner has inserted two English Admiralty charts, ‘Bays of Muros and Arosa; with the inlets of Vigo and Pontevedra …’, engraved by Michael Walker, 1813 (number 4) and William Henry “Mediterranean” Smyth’s ’Chart of the Strait of Gibraltar …, 1826, loosely inserted.
