Summary of Geography...

Martín Fernández de Enciso's 70-page work, "Suma de geographia q[ue] trata de todas las partidas [e] prouincias del mundo en especial de las indias [e] trata largamente del arte del marear juntamente con la espera en romance, con el regimie[n]to del sol y del norte, agora nueuamente emendada de algunos defectos q[ue] tenia enla impressio[n] passada", was published in Seville in 1519 and printed by Juan Cromberger.

The work was pioneering in various ways. It was the first book to describe the navigation of newly discovered lands. It is one of the earliest works of literature that saught to standardise the art of navigating, and to correct routine methods of navigation. It was groundbreaking in its presentation of a consolidated list of locations in the Indies with reasonably accurate latitudes, and in being the first scientific work to include a description of the West Indies. It is also considered the first geography treaty written in Castilian (Spanish).

The work contains brief studies of Earth, the position of the sun, the 'north rule' (the instructions to identify latitude by studying the height of the pole star), and geographical descriptions of parts of the Old World and the New World. The map referred to in the prologue was not printed.