Nautical Tables for Vasco da Gama, 1497–1500?

Abstract

It is believed that Vasco da Gama carried nautical tables on his first voyage to the Indies, 1497–1499, that had especially been produced for the years 1497–1500 by Abraham Zacut, then Royal Astronomer in the service of the Portuguese court. Maritime history writers have suggested two manuscripts as surviving copies of these da Gama tables. One of them is a set of declination tables in the 1519 edition of Suma de Geographia by Martín Fernández de Enciso. Analysis of all available data shows that these tables are indeed good candidates, though their production from the 1505–1508 astronomical tables of Regiomontanus and of Stöffler and Pflaum would be about equally likely. The other candidate is a set of solar ecliptic longitudes, found in the Livro de Marinharia, attributed to André Pires. It is shown that with certainty these have been taken from 1505 to 1508 of Regiomontanus/Stöffler-Pflaum and therefore cannot have served da Gama on his first voyage.