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Dutch Mapmakers

For an entire century, Dutch cartographers were the finest in the world.

Between 1570 and 1670—the years leading up to the formation of the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and the subsequent decades of often spirited Dutch exploration along the Australia's shores—a series of mapmaking families merged art and science in maps and atlases that were unsurpassed. In the workshops of Hondius, Blaeu, Jansson, de Wit and others, cartographers kept pace with the growth of geographical knowledge.

Frederik de Wit - Nova orbis tabula

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Frederik de Wit (1630–1706)
Nova orbis tabula, in lucem edita
New map of the world.
hand-coloured engraving; 52.4 x 61.7 cm
Amsterdam: Frederik de Wit, 1689
State Library of Victoria

The times suited the emergence of Dutch cartography. The Netherlands had become a major naval and commercial power—Dutch ships were investigating the East Indies and North America—and Dutch mapmaker Gerard Mercator (1512–1594), the greatest cartographer since Ptolemy, had just introduced Mercator's Projection, his famous, and indispensable, aid to navigation.

In 1569, Mercator published a revolutionary map projection that, for the first time, allowed sailors to plot compass bearings on maps in straight lines. Almost all nautical maps, and many aviation maps, today use Mercator's projection.

Until Mercator, continents could be represented accurately only on a globe. Using a new set of scientific principles, Mercator was able to transfer the spherical shape of the earth onto a flat page. The resulting distortion, called Mercator's projection, revolutionised land surveying and changed the way the Old World was viewed in the 1500s.

Mercator did not invent the form of projection, but he was the first to use it on navigational charts. His breakthrough ushered in the golden age of mapmaking.

The term 'atlas' was first used in 1585, when Mercator published his first edition of the maps of Ptolemy's Geographia. Reproduced from the originals and engraved in Mercator's own hand, the atlas was published in three parts, with the final part appearing in the year after his death.

Abraham Ortelius

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Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598)
Typus orbis terrarum
World map specifically engraved for the atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
engraving; 33.5 x 49.8 cm
Antwerp: Plantjin, 1587 [1570]
National Library of Australia

http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm146

At the same time, the European market was kept supplied with atlases, sea charts, town plans and every kind of map reflecting expansion of the age. In 1570 Dutch mapmaker Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598) published his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World). The forerunner of the modern atlas, the elegantly engraved collection for the first time contained maps of uniform size in a systematic arrangement. Eight-seven cartographers throughout Europe had contributed to the atlas. It proved hugely popular and was published about 40 times over the following 42 years.

Mapmaking in the Netherlands during the 1500s and 1600s is noted for its works of lavish decoration, particularly the cartes à figures, whose ornamental panels depicted figures, landscapes and possessions. Most of the period's maps and atlases were the work of family businesses.

In 1604, the Hondius family, notably Jodocus (1563–1612) and his son Hendrik (1597–1651), purchased the plates of Mercator's Geographia. Although an excellent publication, the atlas was being outsold by Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.

Decorative details found in ornamental panels surrounding Dutch maps of the period.

Hondius contributed about 40 additional maps to Mercator's original, and from 1606 began publishing larger editions in several languages. Eventually they would become known as the Mercator-Hondius series. Nearly 50 editions were published.

Meanwhile, the Blaeu mapmaking family—Willem (1571–1638) and his sons Joan (1596–1673) and Cornelis—was producing fine maps of the Netherlands and the world. The culmination of the family's work was the Atlas Major, the most opulent atlas of its time. Published in 11 volumes in 1662, it was a mammoth collection containing almost 600 two-page maps and about 3000 pages of text.

The Blaeu family's greatest rival was Jan Jansson (1588–1664), the son-in-law of Jodocus Hondius. In 1616, Jansson began his mapmaking career with a set of maps of Italy and France, and although his output never surpassed that of the Blaeu family, its quality and quantity came close. After the death of his partner and brother-in-law Hendrik Hondius, Jansson took over publication of the Mercator-Hondius series.

Beginning in about 1620, Claes Visscher (1587–1652), and later his son Nicolaes Visscher I and grandson Nicolaes Visscher II, began designing maps of the British isles. The Visschers became famous for their atlases depicting scenes of historic battles and sieges.

Abraham Ortelius

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Frederik de Wit (1630–1706)
Nova totius terrarum orbis tabula
hand-coloured engraving; 50.8 x 60.4 cm.
Amsterdam: Frederik de Wit, 1660
State Library of Western Australia

In the second half of the 1600s, the Allard mapmaking family—Huych (c.1645–1691) and his son Carel—began publishing atlases containing maps and town plans by some of the better known Dutch mapmaking families. Their most famous map epitomises the extent to which one family's work nourished another: the map of New England was based on one by Jansson and included a view of new Amsterdam by Claes Visscher. Frederick de Wit's scarce and highly desirable first world map, Nova totius terrarum orbis tabula, was created for Hendrick Doncker's sea atlas. Two celestial spheres fill the upper corners with polar projections displayed in the bottom corners. At bottom center are two astronomical diagrams depicting the solar system theories of Ptolemy and Copernicus. Four beautifully engraved vignettes envelope representations of Air, Fire, Earth and Water and elaborate hanging garlands of flowers and fruit fill in the gaps.
De Wit also produced a maritime atlas in 1675 comprising 27 maps and considered to be one of the most complete descriptions produced in the seventeenth century.

Hendrick Doncker

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Hendrick Doncker (1626–1699)
Pas caart van de Noort Zee, verthoonende in zich alle de Custen en Havens daer rontom gelegen
Chart of the North Sea and surrounding countries including Netherlands, southern Norway and Sweden, England, Scotland, Denmark and Shetland Islands.
hand-coloured engraving; 42.3 x 53.0 cm
From: Zee-atlas ofte water-waereld
Amsterdam: Hendrick Doncker, 1659

http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-ra10-4

The Dutch also made superb sea charts. Almost 100 years later, the highly successful van Keulen family produced their five-volume marine atlas, the Zee-Atlas which continued to be published until 1734 . Extravagantly decorated with animals, plants and figures, the atlas was considered the most useful navigation aid of its kind at the time.

By the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch had control of much of the trade coming to northern and western Europe. In 1584, one of thier pilots, Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, produced the first set of effective navigational charts. Typically, sea charts showed little details of the adjacent land but focused on navigational landmarks and hazards, anchorages and soundings, together with depictions of ships in full sail and mythical sea monsters as decoration.