Guillaume Le Testu

Who was Guillaume Le Testu?

Guillaume Le Testu, sometimes referred to as Guillaume Le Têtu was a French privateer, explorer and navigator. He was one of the foremost cartographers of his time and an author of the Dieppe maps. His maps were distinguished by their sophistication and detail; they influenced generations of cartographers, navigators and explorers.

Le Testu was successful as a privateer during the early years of the French Wars of Religion. In 1573, he and Sir Francis Drake attacked a Spanish mule train escorting gold and silver to Nombre de Dios on the Atlantic coast of Panama, and he was subsequently killed following his capture by the Spanish.

Suggestions that Le Testu may have mapped Australia are based on: first, his maps' depiction of a large island, south of Java, which Le Testu identified as the Jave la Grande mentioned by Marco Polo and second, Le Testu's incorporation in these maps of birds that resemble black swans and cassowaries, which are both native to Australia. However, he did not claim to have seen Jave la Grande in person and many cartographers at the time incorporated hypothetical, mythological or fantastic elements, a practice that is clearly also true of Le Testu. His maps also showed unicorns and monstrous creatures such as 200 metre long giant snakes, basilisks, satyrs, Blemmyes and Cynocephalics.