Pierre Desceliers (fl. 1537–1553) was a French cartographer of the Renaissance and an eminent member of the Dieppe School of Cartography. He is considered the father of French hydrography.
Little is known of his life. He was probably born at Arques-la-Bataille.[1] The earliest known documentary source for his life places him there as a priest in 1537.[2] Desceliers' father was an archer at the Chateau d’Arques and his family possibly originated from the d’Auge area, where the family name survives between Honfleur and Pont-l’Évêque.[3]
Desceliers was also an examiner of Maritime Pilots and was authorised to award patents on behalf of the French king, as evidenced by the seal found bearing his initials. He probably also taught hydrography. He made a hydrographic chart of the coast of France for Francis, Duke of Guise. Nothing is known of his life after the creation of the 1553 map; the Dictionnaire de biographie française suggests that he died after 1574, but none of its sources support this statement.[4]
- ^ Anthiaume, Albert (1926). Pierre Desceliers: Père de l'Hydrographie et de la Cartographie Françaises. Rouen: Société «Les Amys du Vieux Dieppe». p. 10.
- ^ de Robillard de Beaurepaire, Charles (1871). "Recherches sur les établissements d'instruction publique et la population dans l'ancien diocèse de Rouen". Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de Normandie (in French). 28: 330.
- ^ Anthiaume, Albert (1916). Cartes marines, constructions navales, voyages de découverte chez les Normands, 1500–1650 (in French). Vol. 1. Paris: Dumont. pp. 78–91.
- ^ Marouis, F. (1964). Desceliers, Pierre (in French). Vol. 10. Paris: Letouzey et Ané. p. 1247.
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