Jehuda Cresques

Jehuda Cresques (1350?-1427?), also known as Jafuda Cresques and Jaume Riba, was a Catalan cartographer, and probably the man who coordinated the discoveries of the Portuguese naval school at Sagres in the early 15th century.

Son of another noted cartographer, Abraham Cresques, he was born in Majorca in present-day Spain. Together he and his father were the probable authors of the famous Catalan Atlas of 1375. Born to a Jewish family, after the Aragonese persecutions of 1391 he converted to Christianity, at which time he took the name Jaume Riba (Jacobus Ribus, in Latin). As such, he would have been eligible to be the Portuguese coordinator in the 1420s, and a Mestre Jacome de Malhorca is recorded as holding that position. Most authorities accept that the two were the same person.