Tabula Anemogra Phica Feu Pyxis Navtica (Mariner's Compass with the Winds in Six Languages)

Direction as expressed in wind direction is a very ancient idea. Early wind roses usually had only twelve wind directions. The transition from the twelve to the thirty-two, with eight primary winds subdivided into half-winds and again into quarter winds, occurred in the 15th century. William Salmon's Polygraphice, or the arts of drawing, engraving...washing..., London, 1675, provides detailed instructions for illustrating the four principal winds. "To indicate Eurus, the east wind, draw a youth with puffed and blown checks [sic] (as all the other winds must be,) wings upon his shoulders, his body like a Tauny Moor, upon his head a Red Sun. Zephyrus, the West wind, should be youth with a merry look. [H]olding in his hand a swan with wings outspread as though he were about to sing. On the youth's head should be a garland or all sorts of flowers... Boreas, the north wind should be drawn like an old man, with horrid, terrible look; his hair and beard covered with snow, or the hoar-frost;... Auster, the South wind, was drawn, with head and wings wet, a pot or urn pouring forth water, with which descend frogs, grasshoppers, and the like creatures which are bred by moisture." (The Story of Maps, L.A. Brown) Though Jan Jansson was a map-maker and publisher, it is not known if this wind rose was ever published as part of an atlas.