Pierre Desceliers

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Pierre Desceliers (~1500 ~1558) was a French cartographer of the Renaissance and an eminent members of the Dieppe School of Cartography. He is consider to be the father of French hydrography.

Little is known of his life. He was probably born at Arques-la-Bataille circa 1500. However, other sources give a date of 1483, although this seems unlikely, given the date of his maps. His father was an archer at the chateau d’Arques and it is possible that his family originated from the d’Auge area, where the family names survive between Honfleur and Pont-l’Évêque.

It is known that Desceliers was ordained and lived near Arques. He was also an examiner of Maritime Pilots and was authorised to award patents on behalf of the king, as evidenced by the seal found bearing his initials. He probably also taught hydrography. He made, for Francis, Duke de Guise a hydrographic chart of the coast of France.

He was close to Jean Ango and Dieppois explorers Giovanni da Verrazano and the brothers Jean and Raoul Parmentier, although it seems unlikely that he partook in any voyages, he was able collect information including portolan's, and he incorporated this information into his own maps. A school of cartography formed around him in Dieppe, and counted Nicolas Desliens among its members.

Desceliers made several large portolans:

• The 1543 portolan mentioned in 1872 in the inventory of the collection of Cardinal Louis d'Este under the title The descriptione carta del Mondo in pecorina scritta a mano, miniata tutta per P. Descheliers. - The fate of this map is unknown.
• The 1546 portolan (size: 2560mm x 1260mm), made to order for Francois I. It later belonged to a certain Jomard, then to the Earl of Crawford and is now stored in England at the John Rylands Library, Manchester.
• The 1550 portolan, made for Henri II, showing his arms as well as those of Anne de Montmorency (Marshal of France) and Admiral Claude d'Annebaut. Preserved in London, at the British Library.
• The 1553 portolan. This disappeared in Dresden in a fire in 1915. A copy is on display in Dieppe Castle.
• Another, dated 1558 whose fate is currently unknown, appeared in the International Exhibition of Geography in Paris in 1875.

The Dieppe maps were produced in a transitionary era of mapmaking, between the medieval and modern era. As well as precise knowledge of the coastlines, they also included representations of imaginary places, fantastic people and animals. In the southern hemisphere section, a landmass entitled Jave La Grande was shown in the approximate position of Australia. This has led to speculation that the Dieppe maps are evidence of European (possibly Portuguese) exploration of Australia in the sixteenth century; a century before its well documented exploration by the Dutch. The representation of Canada was well detailed, along with most of the America north and south, just fifty years after Columbus.

Despite their great value, both artistic and cartographic, the charts quickly fell into disuse after the end of the sixteenth century, with the arrival of the rigorous maps of Mercator.

It is believed that Desceliers died in Dieppe in 1558. There is a statue of him in Dieppe, and also a street named for him.