17th Century

JODOCUS HONDIUS
AMERICA, 1606

JODOCUS HONDIUS Hondius was a Dutch cartographer-publisher, also known as Joost de Hondt. He established himself in Amsterdam about 1693 after acquiring possession of Gerard Mercator’s stock. In 1606, he published an important edition of Mercator’s Atlas, including this map, with 37 additional maps of his own. After his death, his sons Jodocus and Henry, along with son-in-law Jan Jansson (see 1658), continued to produce the Atlas throughout most of the remainder of the century, thereby doing much to establish acceptance of the Mercator Projection (see 1595). This is often considered to be the most beautiful of all maps of America produced in the great succession of Dutch mapmakers. It reflects the Dutch penchant for embellishment in showing European galleons’ Oriental sampans, the Austal Continent, etc. It also shows Brazilian Indians making a liquor from mandica root (manioc) which was chewed, boiled and left to ferment. White’s drawings are taken from Theodore de Bry’s engravings in Stadius’s and Lerius’s Brazil (Frankfort, 1605).

AMERICA, 1606 Engraving; Dimsions: 37½ x 50 cm (14¾ x 19 ⅝ in) Published in Mercator-Hondius Atlas, with drawings by John White (Amsterdam, 1606)

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JODOCUS HONDIUS – GERARDUS MERCATOR
AMERICAE DESCRIP., 1608

Hondius published this revised edition of Mercator’s map 12 years after the latter’s death. Note the variety of decorative illustrations. The great Terra Australis is still in evidence, but the Great Lakes have not yet made their appearance. Hondius interestingly indicates that navigation is possible from the mouth of the Amazon to the mouth of the Rio Plata. The area combining the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico has been named “North Sea.”

AMERICAE DESCRIP., 1608
Engraving; Dimensions: 20.3 x 14¾ cm (8 x 11¾ in) Published by Jodocus Hondius (Amsterdam, circa 1606)

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AUGUSTINO TORNIELLO
SITUS PARTIUM PRAECIPAUARUM TOTIUS
ORBIS TERRARUM, 1609

There is very little recorded history about this map, and almost nothing about Torniello. The map is a simplified version of that of Ortelium (see 1579). It is on an oval projection with spandrel windhead decorations. There was a second printing from Milan in 1610 with additional place names such as Nova Guinea and more fully developed cloud designs with putti in the spandrels. Those editions of Torniello’s work published in Frankfurt lack a general map. The Antwerp edition in 1620 contains a similar but smaller map. North American is identified as “America Mexicana,” and South America as “Peruviana.” The Great Southern Continent includes, in present-day Southeast Asia, the cryptic name of “Beach.” A most uncommon map.

SITUS PARTIUM PRAECIPAUARUM TOTIUS ORBIS TERRARUM, 1609

Etching; Dimensions: 19 x 37½ cm (7½ x 14¾ in)
Published in Annales Sacri et Profani…(Milan, 1609)

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JODOCUS HONDIUS – GERARDUS MERCATOR
AMERICAE DESCRIPT., 1610

GERARDUS MERCATOR An interpretation of Mercator’s work must be viewed in context with his times. To some sixteenth-century readers his world map was a purely factual compilation of the latest geographical information. To others, who were still trapped in the Dark Age concept of Orbis Terrarum (“T-in-O”), it was heretical. Mercator’s concept was that the earth was divided into three parts: the Old World, the America’s and the southern continent of Antarctica, or Terra Australis. This was unacceptable to church dogma and after his death Mercator’s map was placed on the index of proscribed works. His most notable cartographic error was persisting in his belief in a passage to Asia around the north of North America, first posited by Münster in 1550. Abraham Ortelius called Mercator “the Ptolemy of our age.”

AMERICAE DESCRIPT., 1610

Engraving; Dimensions: 20.3 x 14¾ cm (8 x 11¾ in)
Published by Jodocus Hondius (Amsterdam, 1610)

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CORNELIUS (CORNEILLE) WYTFLIET
FLORIDA ET APALCHE, 1611

Wytfliet was born in Louvain, Brabant (Belgium) about 1550 and was a lawyer with an interest in geography. His main contribution is as a compiler, rather than a creator. He drew maps that were based on the many published accounts of explorations that occurred in the last decade of the sixteenth century. This map follows Ortelius’s La Florida (see 1584), which had been designed by the Spanish geographer Geronimo Chiaves. It is more of a portolan, or harbor-finding, chart that reveals little information on the interior of North America. The Mississippi is identified as the “R. de S. Spirito.” A translation of the notations along the upper Texas coast reveals “Deserted Quarter,” “River of Parrots,” “River of Giants” (perhaps referring to the Karankawa Indians, mistakenly claimed by Pineda to be “a nation of giants”), and the “River of Fisherman.” In spite of its title, the work owes nothing to Ptolemy in substance or method. The first edition of the Descriptiones is sometimes called the first atlas of the New World, since it contains no maps except those of the Americas.

FLORIDA ET APALCHE, 1611

Engraving: Dimensions: 23 x 29 cm (9 x 11⅜ in)
Published in: Cornelius Wytfliet, Descriptiones Ptolemaicae Augmentum Louvain, 1597),
No. 16 Also in: Wytfliet, Histoire Universelle des Indes (Douay, 1611)

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JOHN SPEED, AMERICA:
with those known parts in that unknown world –
both people and manner of buildings described and enlarged by I.S. ano 1626

JOHN SPEED

Speed was born in Cheshire in 1552 and by painstaking industry and attention to detail became the eventual successor to the Elizabethan cartographer, Christopher Saxton. Although now as great as Saxton, and somewhat derivative, Speed became the best known and most popular maker of English county maps, beginning about 1610. In 1611, these county maps were issued as an atlas, bering the title of Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain, which went into many folio editions. He had his maps engraved by Jodocus Hondius (see 1606), which were issued uncolored. His publishers were Sudbury and Humble, Roger Rea, Basset and Chiswell and Overton and Dicey. He added a considerable amount of heraldry and classical embellishments to his maps, such as the border containing figures of natives of New England, Virginia, Florida, etc., as well as plans of American cities. He often signed his maps as being “performed by John Speed.” This map is from the first general atlas published by an Englishman and is one of the most famous of all maps of America and the only well-known one of this period. It was originally issued in black and white.

America, 1626

Engraving; Dimensions: 42 x 53.3 cm (16½ x 21 in)
Published in: Prospects of the most Famous Parts of the World (Theatre…)
George Humble (London, 1626-1676)
Possibly engraved by Abraham Goos.

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DE L’AMERIQUE
FIGURE CXXXIII
MEXIQUE OV NOUVVELLE ESPAGNE

FIGURE CXXXIII
MEXIQUE OV NOUVVELLE ESPAGNE, 1629

1629; Dimensions: 5¾” x 8⅜”

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GUILJELMO BLAEU
AMERICAE NOVA TABULA, 1640

Blaeu Willem Janszoon

Blaeu (Willem Janszoon Blaeu) was a state surveyor, globe-maker and map publisher. He used his patronymic Janszoon, signing his work as Guilielmus Janssonius or Willems Jans Zoon. This sometimes led to confusion with his rival, Joannes Janssonius (Jan Jansson, see 1658). He was the progenitor of a family that was supreme in cartography. Their work, from 1599 to 1644, redefined that science by introducing cosmography, uranography (description of the heavens), hydrography, chorography (the art of describing a region) and topography; the foundation stones of modern mapmaking. The trade sign over his shop door was a sundial. In 1629, Blaeu produced the first of a series of atlases based on his own decorative work and works of other cartographers. One of the most famous of these was the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum sive Novus (1635), from which this map was taken. It is distinguished by the 19 detailed panels of towns, ports, and nations of the New World, and it is the first map to use outline color to define geographic boundaries. Blaeu, like Leonardo da Vinci, was a true Renaissance Man.

AMERICAE NOVA TABULA, 1640

Engraving; Dimensions: 42 x 51 cm (16½ x 20 in)
Published by W. Blaeu (Amsterdam, circa 1640)

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GUILJELMUS BLAEU
INSULAE AMERICANAE IN OCEANO SEPTENTRIONALI
CUM TERRIS ADIACENTIBUS, 1643

This is a superb issue of Blaeu’s elegant chart of the West Indies and the GulfCoast, at a time when the Caribbean Islands were being intensely exploited, and the slave trade from Africa was flourishing. Blaeu diligently compiled all sources and reports of contemporary voyages and, as a result, his work was more accurate than his predecessors. His world map of 1605 formed the primary source followed by nearly all later cartographers until the great wall map of his son Joan (Jan or Johan) in 1648. After Blaeu’s death in 1638, his sons Cornelius and Joan continued publication of the Theatrum, steadily improving it and increasing its size. During the third generation, the Blaeu enterprise was tragically ended by a fire in 1672 that destroyed their publishing house, stock and most of their plates. On esthetic grounds alone, the Blaeus’ work ranks among the greatest in cartographic history.

INSULAE AMERICANAE IN OCEANO SEPTENTRIONALI CUM TERRIS ADIACENTIBUS, 1643

Engraving; Dimensions: 38 x 52 cm (15 x 20½ in)
Published by W. Blaeu, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum sive Novus (Amsterdam, 1643)

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MEXIQUE DU NOUVELLE ESPAGNE

Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville

In the seventeenth century, the demand for geographical knowledge about the North American hinterland coincided with the founding of a new school of cartography in Paris by Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville. Emphasizing only verifiable information and rejecting the Dutch tendencies for heavy ornamentation, the French school of cartography dominated the map trade for over one hundred years.

Sanson introduced a great deal of information concerning the nomenclature of America Indians, with words such as “Apache” and “Navajo” appearing on printed maps for the first time. He also issued the first printed map specializing in what is now the American Southwest. This map of Mexico was included in Sanson’s 1656 atlas. Sanson’s work served as an important beginning in the great strides made by French scientists in the eighteenth century.

MEXIQUE DU NOUVELLE ESPAGNE, 1656

By Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville
Paris, 1656

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JAN JANSSON
AMERICA NOVITER DELINEATA, 1658

Jansson was one of the famous Dutch cartographers in the group of Jodocus and Henry Hondius, and Claes and Nikolaus Visscher. He was the son-in-law of Jodocus Hondius and a great rival of Willem Blaeu (see 1640 and 1643). He took over the Hondius business about 1657, the year before this map was produced. He had previously constructed globes and had issued an edition by Ptolemy in 1617. In 1633, he and Henry Hondius produced the major two-volume edition of the Mercator Atlas. This magnificently executed map consolidates hard information about the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, while adding new information from the recent explorations of Thomas James around Hudson’s Bay and providing the earliest accurate delineation of Lake Ontario.

AMERICA NOVITER DELINEATA, 1658

Engraving; Dimensions: 51 x 59 cm (20 x 23¼ in)
Published by: J. Jansson (Amsterdam, first edition circa 1650)

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HENDRICK DONCKER
PAS CAERTE VANDE CARIBISCHE EYLENDEN, 1660

Doncker was a Dutch published and chartseller who collected the works of notable cartographers, including Frederick de Wit (see 1680), and published them in his Sea Atlas beginning about 1660. In 1665, he published his Atlas del Mondo o el Mondo Aguado with 46 charts. A second edition of the Sea Atlas was published in 1676 and he was first to coin the term Kaert-boeck (Chartbook) to distinguish his marine charts from his maps. He took over some of the inventory of the famous house of Colom in the mid-1670s and used a world map by de Wit and Arnold Colom, which ad been produced about 1655. The Colom family had been one of the first Dutch publishing houses to produce a world maritime atlas. Before Doncker’s death, Peter the Great commissioned him to print an atlas of the Don River that was drawn by Cornelie Cruys in 1703.

PAS CAERTE VANDE CARIBISCHE EYLENDEN, 1660

Engraving; Dimensions: 52 x 58.4 cm (20½ x 23 in)
Published in: De Niewe groote vermeerderde Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Werelt…(Sea Atlas of the Water-World…)
H. Doncker (Amsterdam, 1660-1661, 27 charts)

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FREDERICK DE WIT
PASCAERT VAN WEST INDIEN ENDE CARBISE EYLANDEN, 1680

A Dutch published and cartographer, Frederick de Wit founded an important three-generation dynasty that continued to produce maps and atlases far into the eighteenth century. De Wit’s first world map is dated 1660. He prepared a striking and colorful maritime map in 1668, complemented by a terrestrial world map in 1670. Both were standards of beauty and accuracy that were copied by other mapmakers and re-issued as late as 1802. This marine chart of the West Indies was produced at the time of major of the activity by pirates and buccaneers in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. De Wit died in 1706.

PASCAERT VAN WEST INDIEN ENDE CARBISE EYLANDEN, 1680

Engraving; Dimensions: 53.3 x 63.5 cm (21 x 25 in)
Published in: Nova Orbis Tabula in Lucem Edita, A. F. de Wit (Amsterdam, 1680)

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CLAES JANSZOON VOOGHT
PAS KAART VAN DEN GOLFF VAN MEXICO BOEK EN ZEE
HAART VERKOPER AANDE NIEWE BRUG INDE GEKROONDE
LOOTSMAN NEF PRIVILEGIE VOOR 15 IAAREN, 1684

This is a typical portolan-type marine chart included in Dutch pilot books by the famous house of Johannes and Gerard van Keulen, who were the most important purveyors of hydrographic information in the world from 1678 to 1885, and made up the largest non-governmental hydrographic office. These were the earliest true sea charts for navigation, as opposed to terrestrial maps, and were modeled after the first pilot book published in 1584 by Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer. Their purpose was to light the mariner’s way in unknown, or “dark,” waters hence their names “Sea Torch,” “Sea Mirror,” or “Light of Navigation.” This edition is named Zee-Fakkel or “Sea-Torch.”

PAS KAART VAN DEN GOLFF VAN MEXICO BOEK EN ZEE HAART VERKOPER AANDE NIEWE BRUG INDE GEKROONDE LOOTSMAN NEF PRIVILEGIE VOOR 15 IAAREN, 1684

Engraving; Dimensions: 53.3 x 62.2 cm (21 x 25½ in)
Published in: Gerard van Keulen, De Nieuwe Groote Luchtende Zee-Fakkel…(Amsterdam, 1684)

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CARTE DE LA NOUVELLE FRANCE

CARTE DE LA NOUVELLE FRANCE, 1684

Does not include New Orleans, therefore it must be 17^th Century.
Circa 1684; Dimensions: 16¾” x 19½”

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MISSISSIPI
PROVINCIÆ LUDOVICIANÆ
IN AMERICA SEPTENTRIONALI

PROVINCIÆ LUDOVICIANÆ, 1687

By Baptist Homannd
1687 (Date of LaSalle in Texas)
SCM Geographo; Norinbergæ
Dimensions: 24” x 20¼”
Similar to Guillame De L’Isle 1719 map (?)

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VINCENZO MARIA CORONELLI
AMERICA SETTENTRIONALE, COLLE NUOVE
SCOPERTE FIN ALL-ANNO 1688 DIVISA NELLE SUE
PARTI SECONDO LO STATO PRESENTE, E
DESCRITTA DAL P. MRO, CORONELLI, M.C.

(DEDICATED TO REV. MSGR. FELIC’ANTONIO MASILY,
ARCHBISHOP OF THE CATHEDRAL OF BOLOGNA, 1688-1695

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli

Although Coronelli’s most memorable contribution to cartographical science was through his production of the largest globes then made (up to 15-feet in diameter). His career spanned the period of French domination, and he died in 1718, the same year that Guillaume de l’Isle published his landmark map of Louisiana (see 1718). This map shows a large amount of trans-Mississippian detail, most of it erroneous. It shows California as an island. The map appears to be modeled after one by the Sanson family, although Coronelli corrected Sanson’s notion that the Rio Grande emptied into the Sea of California, instead of the Gulf of Mexico. He also greatly confused the location of the mouth of the Mississippi River, drawing it in the middle of present-day Texas, hindering La Salle’s expedition.

AMERICA SETTENTRIONALE, COLLE NUOVE SCOPERTE FIN ALL-ANNO 1688 DIVISA NELLE SUE PARTI SECONDO LO STATO PRESENTE, E DESCRITTA DAL P. MRO, CORONELLI, M.C.

Engraving; Dimensions: 72.4 x 49.5 cm (28½ x 19½ in)
Published by the Republic of Venice

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VINCENZO MARIA COLONELLI
MARE DEL NORD AUTTORE IL V.M. CORONELLI
M.C. COSMOGRAPHE…DE VENETIA, 1690

Coronelli was a trained geographer and Franciscan priest who signed himself as “p. Coronelli (presumably the “P” stood for “Pere” or “Padre”), or “P.M. Coronelli” (the “M” standing for “Marcdo” or “Maria”). By today’s standards, his full name would have been Marco Vincenzo Maria Coronelli, Franciscan (M.C.). He was a slow but steady recorder of explorations that brought Texas into the limelight of European politics. He was appointed Royal Geographer to the Republic of Venice with access to information from explorers then moving throughout the southwestern regions of North America. During his lifetime, he published over 400 maps and founded the Accademia degli Argonauti. His commercial partner in Paris was Jean Baptishe Nolin, engraver to the king, and later appointed géograph ordinaire du Roi. Mare del Nord is a striking map of the Atlantic Ocean between the coastlines of the four continents.

MARE DEL NORD AUTTORE IL V.M. CORONELLI
M.C. COSMOGRAPHE…DE VENETIA, 1690

Engraving; Dimensions: 48 x 70 cm (19 x 27½ in)
Produced for the Republic of Venice; “Auttore il P.M. Coronelli, M.C.,
Cosmografo della Serenissma Republica de Venetia, Dedicato al’Illmo., et Ecemo.
Sig: Il Sig. Giovanni Grimani, Savio di Terra Ferma.”

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ALEXIS HUBERT JAILLOT
AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONALE, 1690

Jaillot was the founder of a French cartographic dynasty that succeeded the Sansons (see 1669 and 1683). His most important work was his Atlas Nouveau, first published as a work of 45 maps in 1681, from which this map is taken. The fifth edition (1695) was re-titled Atlas François and had 115 maps. The final edition, completed by his children around 1750, had 167 maps. This map revises one originally published by Nicholas Sanson to include French missions in upper Ontario, while retaining the prominent California island perpetuated by Coronelli (see 1688 and 1695) in Venice. This is the largest and most decorative of late seventeenth-century maps of North America.

AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONALE, 1690

Engraving; Dimensions: 56 x 62.2 cm (21½ x 24½ in)
Published in: Alexis Jaillot, Atlas Nouveau (Paris, 1690, third edition)

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