Dell'Arcano del Mare

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Dell'Arcano del Mare by Sir Robert Dudley is a 17th-century maritime encyclopaedia, the sixth part of which comprises a maritime atlas of the entire world, which is the first such in print, the first made by an Englishman, and the first to use the Mercator projection. The work was first published in Italian at Florence in 1645 and 1646 in three folio volumes.

Among other things, it is remarkable for its inclusion of a proposal for the construction of a navy in five rates (sizes) which Dudley designed and described. It was reprinted in Florence in a two volume folio edition in 1661 without the charts of the first edition.