The Netherlands period can be divided into two geographically distinct regions: the South Netherlands period until 1590, centred on Antwerp. Followed by the Northern Netherlands period, focused on Amsterdam.
Frans Hogenberg, Germaniae Inferioris omnium accuratissima delineatio auctore Francisco Hogenbergio ; anno salutis M.D.LXXVIII ([Antwerp],1578)
The father of Dutch cartography is often considered to be the Flanders born, Gerard Mercator (1512 - 1594). Mercator was regarded in his own lifetime as the "Ptolemy of his time". Mercator regarded himself much more as an academic cosmographer than as someone who earned his living from producing, printing and selling maps. Though he left behind only a pair of globes, five wall maps and an unfinished cosmography, we can not ignore the influence that these products had upon later commercial mapmakers and publishers in the Netherlands.
Gerard Mercator, Orbis terrae compendiosa descriptio (Antwerp, Rumoldus Mercator, ca 1587)
The commercial production of maps and associated publications in Antwerp expanded during the second half of the sixteenth century from a subsidiary activity into one of the most important economic activities of the printing and publishing trade. The centre of this activity migrated in the last decade of the sixteenth century from Antwerp in the south to Amsterdam in the north.
In 1570 the Antwerp cartographer Abraham Ortelius published his life's work, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theater of the World). This work is considered the first modern atlas and was published in seven languages and 41 editions between 1570 and 1612. Printed by the famous Plantijn Publishing and printing house, it was the most expensive book of its time.
Like Mercator, whom he new personally, Ortelius did not produce a large number of original maps. He would have been accorded only a small place in the annals of cartography, if he had not hit upon the idea of redrawing the best maps which were available to a single format and publishing them with a description in folio book form. Although the term "Atlas" was first used by Mercator as the title of his book of maps published in 1585, the format and layout that Ortilius presented in his "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum" set the standard for atlas production until well into the nineteenth century.
Gerard de Jode, a competitor of Ortilius',
was first to see the profit behind Ortilius' idea. De Jode published a similarly formatted Atlas
in 1578.
Gerard de Jode, Hemispherium ab aequinoctiali linea, ad circulum poli arctici, Hemispherium ab aequinoctiali linea, ad circulum poli antarctici (Antwerp, 1593)
Guilielmus Blaeuw, Africae nova descriptio (Amsterdam, Willem Jansz. Blaeu, ca 1630)
University of Amsterdam Libray Map Collection
Lugdunum Batavorum:
Leyden in Hollant,
(Amsterdam : Willem Jansz. Blaeu, [1613])
