Nicolas de Nicolay

Nicolay, Nicolas de (1517-83). French traveller, soldier, artist, and royal cartographer; his topographies of the French provinces, commissioned by Catherine de Médicis, were unpublished in his lifetime, but the lively account of his travels, Navigations et pérégrinations orientales (1567), was translated into five languages; Nicolay's illustrations of local costume are particularly fine.

[Michael Heath]