Early modern Netherlandish cartography


The period of late 16th and much of the 17th century has been called the "Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish cartography". The mapmaking firms of Antwerp and Amsterdam, especially, were leaders in supplying maps and charts for almost all of Europe. As James A. Welu notes, "For roughly a century, from 1570 to 1670, mapmakers working in the Low Countries brought about unprecedented advances in the art of cartography. The maps, charts, and globes issued during this period, at first mainly in Antwerp and later in Amsterdam, are distinguished not only by their accuracy according to the knowledge of the time, but also by their richness of ornamentation, a combination of science and art that has rarely been surpassed in the history of mapmaking."
by Abraham Ortelius, 1570
, originally prepared by Joan Blaeu for his Atlas Maior, published in the first book of the Atlas Van Loon.
 by Claes Janszoon Visscher, 1609
'' by the Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer. There was always a cultural relationship between many :Category:Art of the Dutch Golden Age|Dutch Golden Age artists and cartographic works. The "Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography" was a period of the unique combination of scientific, artistic, political, and economic elements in the history of mapmaking.

Origins

Until the fall of Antwerp, the Dutch and Flemish were generally seen as one people. The center for cartographic activities in sixteenth-century Low Countries was Antwerp, a city of printers, booksellers, engravers, and artists. But Leuven was the center of learning and the meeting place of scholars and students at the university. Mathematics, globemaking, and instrumentmaking were practiced in and around the University of Leuven as early as the first decades of the sixteenth century. The university is the oldest in the Low Countries and the oldest center of both scientific and practical cartography. Without the influence of several outstanding scholars of the Leuven University, cartography in the Low Countries would not have attained the quality and exerted the influence that it did.
Notable figures of the Netherlandish school of cartography and geography include: Franciscus Monachus, Gemma Frisius, Gaspard van der Heyden, Gerard Mercator, Abraham Ortelius, Christophe Plantin, Lucas Waghenaer, Jacob van Deventer, Willebrord Snell, Hessel Gerritsz, Petrus Plancius, Jodocus Hondius, Henricus Hondius II, Hendrik Hondius I, Willem Blaeu, Joan Blaeu, Johannes Janssonius, Andreas Cellarius, Gerard de Jode, Cornelis de Jode, Michiel van Langren, Claes Visscher, Nicolaes Visscher I, Nicolaes Visscher II, and Frederik de Wit. Leuven, Antwerp, and Amsterdam were the main centres of the Netherlandish school of cartography in its golden age. The Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography that was inaugurated in the Southern Netherlands by Mercator and Ortelius found its fullest expression during the seventeenth century with the production of monumental multi-volume atlases in the Dutch Republic by competing mapmaking firms such as Lucas Waghenaer, Joan Blaeu, Jan Janssonius, Claes Janszoon Visscher, and Frederik de Wit.
During the Golden Age of Dutch exploration and the Golden Age of Dutch/Netherlandish cartography, Dutch-speaking navigators, explorers, and cartographers were the firsts to chart/map many hitherto largely unknown regions of the earth and the sky. During roughly a century, Netherlandish cartographers made important contributions to the science and art of mapmaking. Their publications are remarkable milestones in the history of cartography, the extant editions are not only valuable sources of contemporary geographic knowledge but also fine works of art. The main role in this was played by a special artistic atmosphere of the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Low Countries experienced cultural and economic booms that was combined with enthusiasm of different classes of people for geography and maps. The unique atmosphere made mapmaking a form of art. Cartography and visual arts were related activities: art and mapmaking interacted with each other: many cartographic elements, such as images, colour, and lettering, were shared with art; tools and methods used to produce maps and artistic works were very similar in printmaking and in mapmaking: copperplate engravings, which were hand coloured in later, required specific artistic skills; a significant number of both little-known and the most outstanding artists were involved in decorating maps; maps and art works were often performed by the same artists, engravers and publishers who worked for both areas; artists, engravers and mapmakers belonged to the same group of society that determined the development of culture in many areas.
Gemma Frisius was the first to propose the use of a chronometer to determine longitude in 1530. In his book On the Principles of Astronomy and Cosmography, Frisius explains for the first time how to use a very accurate clock to determine longitude. The problem was that in Frisius' day, no clock was sufficiently precise to use his method. In 1761, the British clock-builder John Harrison constructed the first marine chronometer, which allowed the method developed by Frisius. Triangulation had first emerged as an efficient method in cartography in the mid sixteenth century when Frisius set out the idea in his Libellus de locorum describendorum ratione. Dutch scientists Jacob van Deventer and Willebrord Snell were among the firsts to make systematic use of triangulation in modern surveying, the technique whose theory was described by Frisius in his 1533 book. Gerardus Mercator is considered as one of the founders of modern cartography with his invention of Mercator projection. Mercator was the first to use the term 'atlas' to describe a bound collection of maps through his own collection entitled "Atlas sive Cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mvndi et fabricati figvra". The hypothesis that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596.

Rise to the golden age and decline

Flanders, [Habsburg Netherlands]

Mercator projection and the concept of atlas

, the German-Netherlandish cartographer and geographer with a vast output of wall maps, bound maps, globes and scientific instruments but his greatest legacy was the mathematical projection he devised for his 1569 world map.
The Mercator projection is an example of a cylindrical projection in which the meridians are straight and perpendicular to the parallels. As a result, the map has a constant width and the parallels are stretched east–west as the poles are approached. Mercator's insight was to stretch the separation of the parallels in a way which exactly compensates for their increasing length, thus preserving shapes of small regions, albeit at the expense of global distortion. Such a conformal map projection necessarily transforms rhumb lines, sailing courses of a constant bearing, into straight lines on the map thus greatly facilitating navigation. That this was Mercator's intention is clear from the title: Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata which translates as "New and more complete representation of the terrestrial globe properly adapted for use in navigation". Although the projection's adoption was slow, by the end of the seventeenth century it was in use for naval charts throughout the world and remains so to the present day. Its later adoption as the all-purpose world map was an unfortunate step.
Mercator spent the last thirty years of his life working on a vast project, the Cosmographia; a description of the whole universe including the creation and a description of the topography, history and institutions of all countries. The word atlas makes its first appearance in the title of the final volume: "Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura". This translates as Atlas OR cosmographical meditations upon the creation of the universe, and the universe as created, thus providing Mercator's definition of the term atlas. These volumes devote slightly less than one half of their pages to maps: Mercator did not use the term solely to describe a bound collection of maps. His choice of title was motivated by his respect for Atlas "King of Mauretania"

Ortelius and the era of modern world atlases

generally recognized as the creator of the world's first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum is considered the first true atlas in the modern sense: a collection of uniform map sheets and sustaining text bound to form a book for which copper printing plates were specifically engraved. It is sometimes referred to as the summary of sixteenth-century cartography.

[Dutch Republic] (United Provinces of the Netherlands) and [Dutch Empire]

During the Age of Discovery, using their expertise in doing business, cartography, shipbuilding, seafaring and navigation, the Dutch traveled to the far corners of the world, leaving their language embedded in the names of many places. Dutch exploratory voyages revealed largely unknown landmasses to the civilized world and put their names on the world map. In the 16th and 17th centuries, :Category:17th-century Dutch cartographers|Dutch-speaking cartographers helped lay the foundations for the birth and development of modern cartography, including nautical cartography and stellar cartography. The Dutch-speaking people came to dominate the map making and map printing industry by virtue of their own travels, trade ventures, and widespread commercial networks. The Dutch initiated what we would call today the free flow of geographical information. As Dutch ships reached into the unknown corners of the globe, Dutch cartographers incorporated new discoveries into their work. Instead of using the information themselves secretly, they published it, so the maps multiplied freely. The Dutch were the first to undisputedly discover, explore and map many unknown isolated areas of the world such as Svalbard, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Sakhalin, and Easter Island. In many cases the Dutch were the first Europeans the natives would encounter. Australia, never became a permanent Dutch settlement, yet the Dutch were the first to undisputedly map its coastline. The Dutch navigators charted almost three-quarters of the Australian coastline, except the east coast. During the Age of Exploration, the Dutch explorers and cartographers were also the first to systematically observe and map the largely unknown far southern skies – the first significant scientific addition to the celestial cartography since :Category:Constellations listed by Ptolemy|Ptolemy's time. Among the IAU's 88 modern constellations, there are 15 Dutch-created constellations, including 12 :Category:Southern constellations|southern constellations.

Frisius, Snell, and the rise of triangulation as a mapmaking method

had first emerged as a map-making method in the mid sixteenth century when Gemma Frisius set out the idea in his Libellus de locorum describendorum ratione. Dutch cartographer Jacob van Deventer was among the first to make systematic use of triangulation, the technique whose theory was described by Gemma Frisius in his 1533 book.
The modern systematic use of triangulation networks stems from the work of the Dutch mathematician Willebrord Snell, who in 1615 surveyed the distance from Alkmaar to Bergen op Zoom, approximately 70 miles, using a chain of quadrangles containing 33 triangles in all. The two towns were separated by one degree on the meridian, so from his measurement he was able to calculate a value for the circumference of the earth – a feat celebrated in the title of his book Eratosthenes Batavus, published in 1617. Snell's methods were taken up by Jean Picard who in 1669–70 surveyed one degree of latitude along the Paris Meridian using a chain of thirteen triangles stretching north from Paris to the clocktower of Sourdon, near Amiens.

Waghenaer and the rise of Dutch maritime cartography

The first printed atlas of nautical charts was produced by Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer in Leiden in 1584. This atlas was the first attempt to systematically codify nautical maps. This chart-book combined an atlas of nautical charts and sailing directions with instructions for navigation on the western and north-western coastal waters of Europe. It was the first of its kind in the history of maritime cartography, and was an immediate success. The English translation of Waghenaer's work was published in 1588 and became so popular that any volume of sea charts soon became known as a "waggoner", the Anglicized form of Waghenaer's surname.

Dutch celestial and lunar cartography in the Age of Discovery

The constellations around the South Pole were not observable from north of the equator, by the ancient Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Indians, or Arabs. During the Age of Exploration, expeditions to the southern hemisphere began to result in the addition of new constellations. The modern constellations in this region were defined notably by Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, who in 1595 traveled together to the East Indies. These 12 newly Dutch-created :Category:Southern constellations|southern constellations first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597/1598 in Amsterdam by Dutch cartographers Petrus Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of these constellations in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603.
In 1660, German-born Dutch cartographer Andreas Cellarius' star atlas was published by Johannes Janssonius in Amsterdam.
In 1645, Dutch-born Michiel van Langren published the first known map of the Moon with a nomenclature.

Competing mapmaking firms in the age of corporate cartography

The Dutch dominated the commercial cartography during the seventeenth century through the publicly traded companies and the competing privately held map-making houses/firms. In the book Capitalism and Cartography in the Dutch Golden Age, Elizabeth A. Sutton explores the fascinating but previously neglected history of corporate cartography during the Dutch Golden Age, from ca. 1600 to 1650. Maps were used as propaganda tools for both the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company in order to encourage the commodification of land and an overall capitalist agenda.
In the long run the competition between map-making firms Blaeu and Janssonius resulted in the publication of an 'Atlas Maior' or 'Major Atlas'. In 1662 the Latin edition of Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior appeared in eleven volumes and with approximately 600 maps. In the years to come French and Dutch editions followed in twelve and nine volumes respectively. Purely judging from the number of maps in the Atlas Maior, Blaeu had outdone his rival Johannes Janssonius. And also from a commercial point of view it was a huge success. Also due to the superior typography the Atlas Maior by Blaeu soon became a status symbol for rich citizens. Costing 350 guilders for a non-coloured and 450 guilders for a coloured version, the atlas was the most precious book of the 17th century. However, the Atlas Maior was also a turning point: after that time the role of Dutch cartography was finished. Janssonius died in 1664 while a great fire in 1672 destroyed one of Blaeu's print shops. In that fire a part of the copperplates went up in flames. Fairly soon afterwards Joan Blaeu died, in 1673. The almost 2,000 copperplates of Janssonius and Blaeu found their way to other publishers.

Gallery

Legacy and recognition

An asteroid is named for Gerardus Mercator. On 5 March 2015, Google celebrated his 503rd birthday with a doodle.
On 20 May 2018, Google Doodle celebrated the anniversary of Ortelius' atlas which was published on May 20, 1570.
Crater Langrenus, on the Moon, is named after Michiel van Langren.

Field of (early modern) Netherlandish cartographic and geographic studies

Some notable scholars/historians of Netherlandish cartography and geography include Cornelis Koeman, Peter van der Krogt, Günter Schilder, Benjamin Schmidt, Elizabeth A. Sutton, Claudia Swan, and Kees Zandvliet.