Reference Books
Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica - Volume 3
By Pierre Joppen
Sep 24, 2005, 08:49

Is larger than volumes I and II combined. It is devoted entirely to the wall map of the world in two hemispheres published in 1619 by Willem Jansz, Blaeu and reissued with alterations by his son Joan in 1645-46. Both versions are part of a rich cartographic tradition in Amsterdam in the first half of the seventeenth century that satisfied an immense demand for global information Testimony to the fragility of wall maps, thousands of impressions of both maps were originally printed but only one example of each state is extant, both at the 'Prins Hendrik' Maritime Museum in Rotterdam.

Following the fall of Antwerp in 1585, the economic center of the Netherlands moved to the northern Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam Amsterdam's growth was stimulated by several factors: to record exploration associated with the northeast passage, the East and West Indies, and South America; to disseminate news of the war with Spain; and to document changes in the domestic cultural landscape, particularly hydrographical. To achieve these aims, the city was able to capitalize on the new pool of geographical talent in the form of religious refugees from the southern Netherlands, particularly Cornelis Claesz, Petrus Plancius, Petrus Bertius, and Pieter and Abraham Goos.

With this backdrop in place, Schilder provides a short but very useful biography of Blaeu, who started out as Willem Jansz. but decided to adopt his father's sobriquet (Blue Willem) as the family name to avoid confusion with Jan Jansz. who had moved in next door, Willem Jansz. thus became Willem Jansz, Blaeu around 1622. Blaeu's appointment as official mapmaker to the Dutch East India Company (VOC) on the death of Hessel Gerritsz in 1632 sharpened his competitive edge: he now had the complete archive of maps and charts of the VOC at his disposal. But his competitors were never entirely

 As further background. this volume contains a description of thirteen wall maps of the world published in Amsterdam before 1619 with all their editions, highlighting the importance of the radical Calvinist Petrus Plancius's map of 1592 in eighteen sheets. Plancius's map was the basis of many Late sixteenth-century wall maps - Dutch and Italian - and Schilder provides a very useful genealogical stemma of its influence.

 The core of this third volume is a detailed description of the two versions of the Blaeu wall map (1619 and 1645/46). Sources used for iconography as well as geography are presented. Between Willem Blaeu's version of 1619 and Joan Blaeu's second edition (1645/46). there were key discoveries and advances in geographical knowledge: the fictitious northwest coast of America is omitted, and the results of Abel Tasman's two voyages (1642-43 and 1644) in Australia and New Zealand - as well as those of his predecessors - have been included. But not all the geographical changes to the map were 'progressive:' the representation of California as an island in the second version appears alongside the more timely representation of the momentous explorations in the southern hemisphere. Nor should the power of decoration in the market place he underemphasized. as Schilder's lengthy general excursion into the development of decorative borders on Dutch wall maps before 1619 demonstrates: after the Peace of Munster, which ended the Thirty Years' War and changed many national boundaries and names, Joan Blaeu put out an entirely new map of the world on 21 copper plates in 1648, but demand for the geographically obsolete 1645-46 map continued simply because the 1648 map did not have decorative borders. (Orderform)

Introduction

I. Amsterdam during the time of Willem Jansz [Blaeu]

II. Wall-maps of the world published in Amsterdam before 1619

III. The wall-map of the world in two hemispheres by Willem Jansz. [Blaeu] of 1619

IV. The revised edition of the wall-map of the world in two hemispheres by Joan Blaeu of 1645/46

The wall-map of the world in two hemispheres by Willem Jansz. of 1619 (99x 190 cm; the only known copy without decorative borders) and the revised edition by Joan Blaeu of 1645/46 (173 x 276 cm; the only known copy is provided with decorative b6rders and text), both preserved in the Maritiem Museum 'Prins Hendrik', Rotterdam have been published in full-size.

Text volume: Blue cloth, bound with gold imprint. Format 400x285mm/ 15,5x11,5inch. Text in Dutch and English; 352 illustrations in black and white. 351 pp.

Map volume: Blue cloth portfolio, bound with gold imprint. Format 410x580mm/ 16x23inch. 120 grams paper [cream coloured] 2 maps printed on 41 sheets.