Abraham Cresques

Abraham Cresques (* Mallorca; † around 1387 ), also Avram Cresques, was a Catalan cartographer and compass maker of Jewish descent. Together with his son Jehuda Cresques he drew in 1375 the Catalan Atlas.

Throughout his life Cresques has dealt with maps, compasses and watches. In 1375 he received from Peter IV of Aragon an order to draw four cards that should cover everything known from east to west. The Catalan Atlas can now be seen in the French National Library.

The atlas is based on information that the family Cresques by sailors gave up, ran their routes via node Mallorca. The peculiarity of the Catalan Atlas was that apart from the results of the Catalan portulani (which are detailed nautical charts for the most part the lake areas of the Mediterranean ) and the geographical knowledge of Marco Polo's travels were processed for the first time.

On the drawn Cresques total of six double vision, each 64 x 50 inches in size, which at that time known world is mapped from the Atlantic to China and richly provided with image information on the country and its people.