Jehudà Cresques (, 1360-1410), also known as Jafudà Cresques, Jaume Riba, and Cresques lo Juheu ("Cresques the Jew"), was a converso cartographer in the early 15th century.
Son of Abraham Cresques, a famous Jewish cartographer, he was born in a Jewish family in Majorca, in the Majorcan-Catalan speaking part of Crown of Aragon, in present-day Spain. Together he and his father were the probable authors of the famous Catalan Atlas of 1375.
Cresques' work was highly sought after; in 1390 John I of Aragon paid the princely sum of 60 livres and 8 sous for one of his maps. After the Aragonese persecutions of 1391 he converted to Christianity, at which time he took the name Jaume Riba, Jacobus Ribus, in Latin. he appears to have remained in Majorca for a considerable time and to have become known to the people there as "lo jueu buscoler", the map Jew, or "el jueu de les bruixoles", the compass Jew.
It has long been believed that Jehuda Cresques is the same person as 'Mestre Jacome', a Majorcan cartographer induced by the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator to move to Portugal in the 1420s to train Portuguese map-makers in Majorcan-style cartography. 'Jacome of Majorca' was described as the head of Henry's legendary observatory and "school" at Sagres by Samuel Purchas, though the existence of the alleged school has long been discounted. The identification of "Mestre Jacome" with Jehuda Cresques" is principally due to the Catalan historian Gonzalo de Reparaz (1930). However, more recent research argues that Jehuda Cresques was already dead by 1410, and "Mestre Jacome" must have been someone else, identity still indeterminate; Majorca had many skilled Jewish cartographers.
Other articles related to "jehuda cresques, cresques, jehuda":
... Abraham Cresques also known as, Cresques the Jew, was appointed as a Master of Maps and Compasses by John I of Aragon ... In 1374 and 1375 Abraham and his son Jehuda worked on a special order ... Cresques, who knew Arabic, also used the travel narratives of Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta ...
... In 1375, Cresques and his son Jehuda received an assignment from Prince John of Aragon (the future John I of Aragon) to make a set of nautical charts ... For this job, Cresques and Jehuda would be paid 150 Aragonese golden florins, and 60 Mallorcan pounds, respectively, as it is stated in 14th-century documents from the Prince himself and his ... In that year 1375 Cresques and Jehuda drew the six charts that composed the Catalan Atlas at their house in the Jewish quarter of Palma ...