The House of Blaeu vs.The House of Hondius – The Battle of the Globes and Atlases

There is a South to North trajectory in the evolution of the modern mathematical cartography in Europe over the two hundred years between fourteen hundred and sixteen hundred. Ptolemaic mathematical cartography re-entered Europe in Northern Italy with the first translation into Latin of his Geographia by Jacobus Angulus in 1406. Following this the first modern cartographers, including Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, were also situated in Northern Italy. By the middle of the fifteenth century the main centre of cartographical activity had moved north to Vienna and was centred around Kloster-Neuburg and the University with its First Viennese School of Mathematics, Georg von Peuerbach and Johannes Regiomontanus. Towards the end of the century printed editions of Ptolemaeus’ work began to appear both north and south of the Alps. The beginning of the sixteenth century saw the main centres of cartographic development in the Southern German sphere. Two principle schools are identifiable, the Nürnberg-Vienna school, whose main figures are Johannes Stabius, Peter Apian and Johannes Schöner, and the South-Western school with Waldseemüller and Ringmann in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges and Sebastian Münster in Basel. Again by the middle of the century the centre had once again moved northwards to Leuven and the Flemish school founded by Gemma Frisius and including the two great atlas makers Abraham Ortelius and Gerard Mercator. At the start of the seventeenth century the final step northwards had been taken and the new state of The United Provinces (The Netherlands) had taken the lead in modern cartography. This final step is the subject of this post.

Willem Janszoon Blaeu was born into a prosperous herring trading family in Alkmaar or Uitgeest in 1471. As would have been expected he was sent at an early age to Amsterdam to learn the family trade but it did not appeal to him and he worked instead as a carpenter and clerk in the office of his cousin. In late 1595 his life took a radical turn when he travelled to Hven to study astronomy under Tycho Brahe. It is not known what level of foreknowledge Blaeu took to Hven with him but he spent six months there studiously learning astronomy, instrument making, geodesy and cartography with Tycho and his staff. When he started his observing marathon Tycho had had a large brass globe constructed on which he, over the years, engraved the positions of all the stars that he had measured. Blaeu was given permission to transfer this data to a globe of his own. In 1596 he returned to Alkmaar and his wife Maertgen Cornilisdochter who bore his eldest son Joan on 21 September. On 21 February 1598 Blaeu in Alkmaar and Tycho in Hamburg both observed a lunar eclipse to determine the relative longitude of the two cities.

Portrait of Willem Janszoon Blaeu Artist unknown

Sometime in 1598/9 Blaeu took his family to Amsterdam and set up shop as a printer, instrument maker, globe maker and cartographer; making his first celestial globe, 34 cm diameter, for Adriaan Anthoniszoon, using Tycho’s data; this was the first publication of that data. However Blaeu’s new career was not going to be simple as he had an established competitor, Jocodus Hondius.

Jocodus Hondius was born Joost de Hondt in Wakken and grew up in Ghent, both now in Belgium, on 14 October 1563. He received an education in mathematics and learnt engraving, drawing and calligraphy. He had already established himself as a successful engraver when he was forced by the Spanish, as a Calvinist, to flee to London in 1584. In London he worked for and with Richard Hakluyt and Edward Wright and expanded his knowledge of geography and cartography through contact with the English explorers Francis Drake, Thomas Cavendish and Walter Raleigh. Around 1589 he published a wall map in London showing Drake’s voyage around the world. In 1593 he moved back to The Netherlands, establishing himself in Amsterdam.

Self-portrait of Jodocus Hondas taken from one of his maps

Portrait of Francis Drake by Jodocus Hondas from his Drake world map

He formed an alliance with the Plantin printing house in Leiden for who he made several globes. In 1602 he matriculated at the University of Leiden to study mathematics. In 1604 he made the most important decision of his career in that he bought the copper printing plates of the of both Mercator’s edition of Ptolemaeus’ Geographia and Mercator’s Atlas from his heirs.He published a new edition of Mercator’s Ptolemaeus, Claudïï Ptolemaeï Alexandrini geographicae libri octo graecog latini, in the same year. He set up his own publishing house in Amsterdam in December 1604. In the sixteenth century Mercator’s Atlas had failed to establish itself in a market dominated by Ortelius’ Theatum Orbis Terrarum, however Hondius republished it in 1606 with 36 new maps and it became a best seller.

Atlas sive Cosmographiae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Frabicati Figura
Mercator (left) and Hondius (right) shown working together on tittle page of 1630 Atlas
Slightly ironical as they never met and both were dead by then.

Meanwhile Blaeu had established himself as a globe maker and astronomer. Following the tradition established by Johannes Schöner and continued by Mercator Blaeu issued a pair of 23.5 cm globes, terrestrial and celestial, in 1602. His rival Hondius introduced the southern constellation on a celestial globe produced in cooperation with the astronomer-cartographer Petrus Plancius in 1598. Blaeu followed suite in 1603. Hondius produced a pair of 53.5 cm globes in 1613; Blaeu countered with a pair of 68 cm globes in 1616, which remained the largest globes in production for over 70 years.

Hondas celestial globe 1600
Source: Linda Hall Library

A matching pair of Blaeu globes

As an astronomer Blaeu discovered the star P Cygni, only the third variable star to be discovered. In 1617 Willebrord Snellius published his Eratosthenes Batavus (The Dutch Eratosthenes) in which he described his measurement of a meridian arc between Alkmaar and Bergen op Zoom. This was done in consultation with Blaeu, who had learnt the art of triangulation from Tycho, using a quadrant, with a radius of more than 2 metres, constructed by Blaeu. Blaeu specialised in publishing books on navigation beginning in 1605 with his Nieuw graetbouck and established himself as the leading Dutch publisher of such literature.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Title page
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Quadrant constructed by Blaeu for Snellius now in Museum Boerhaave in Leiden
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Jodocus Hondius died in 1612 and his sons Jodocus II and Henricus took over the publish house later going into partnership with Jan Janszoon their brother in law. They continued to publish new improved version of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas. Blaeu had already established himself as the successful publisher of wall maps when he began planning a major atlas to rival that of the house of Hondius. That rivalry is also reflected in a name change that Blaeu undertook in 1617. Up till then he had signed his work either Guilielmus Janssonius or Willem Janszoon, now he started add the name Blaeu to his signature probably to avoid confusion with Jan Janszoon (Janssonius), his rival.

Jan Janszoon Original copperplate from his Atlas Novus 1647

In 1630 the strangest episode in the battle of the globes and atlases took place when Jodocus II’s widow sold 37 of the copper plates of the Mercator-Hondius Atlas to Willem Blaeu. He published them together with maps of his own in his Atlantic Appendix in 1631. In 1636 Blaeu published the first two volumes of his own planned world atlas as Atlas Novus or Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, thus reviving the old Ortelius name.

In 1633 the States General (the government of the United Provinces) appointed Blaeu mapmaker of the Republic. In the same year he was appointed cartographer and hydrographer of the Vereenighde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) – The Dutch East India Company. His son Joan inherited the VOC position, as did his grandson Joan II; The Blaeu family held this prestigious position from 1633 till 1712.

Willem Blaeu had great plans to publish several more volumes of his world atlas but he didn’t live to see them realised, dying 21 October 1638. The publishing house passed to his two sons Joan (1596-1673) and Cornelis (c.1610-1644). The last two volumes prepared by Willem appeared in 1640 and 1645. Joan completed his father’s atlas with a sixth volume in 1655.

Along with all his other achievements Willem Janszoon Blaeu made a substantial improvement to the mechanical printing press by adding a counter weight to the pressure bar in order to make the platen rise automatically. This ‘Blaeu’ or ‘Dutch’ press became standard throughout the low countries and was also introduced into England. The first printing press introduced into America in 1639 was a Blaeu press.

Although he held a doctorate in law, Joan devoted his life to the family cartographic publishing business. In 1662 he set the high point of the atlas battle with the House of Hondius with the publication of the Atlas Maior; containing 600 double page maps and 3,000 pages of text it was the most spectacular atlas of all time. Along with its lavish maps the Atlas Maior contained a map of Hven and pictures of the house and stellar observatory on the island where Willem Janszoon Blaeu first learnt his trade. Whereas Willem was careful not to take sides in the dispute between the different systems for the cosmos – geocentric, heliocentric, geo-heliocentric – in the Atlas Maior, Joan committed to heliocentricity.

Joan Blaeu. By J.van Rossum
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Blaeu Atlas Maior 1662-5, Volume 1
Nova Et Accvratissima Totius Terrarvm Orbis Tabvla
Source: National Library of Scotland

The rivalry between the Houses of Hondius and Blaeu, pushing each other to new heights of quality and accuracy in their maps and globes led to them totally dominating the European market in the first half of the sixteenth century, particularly in the production of globes where they almost had a monopoly. Globes in the period, which weren’t from one of the Amsterdam producers, were almost always pirated copies of their products.

As an interesting footnote, as with all things mathematical England lagged behind the continent in cartography and globe making. Although there had been earlier single globes made in on the island, England’s first commercial producer of terrestrial and celestial globes, Joseph Moxon, learnt his trade from Willem Janszoon Blaeu in Amsterdam. In 1634 Blaeu had published a manual on how to use globes, Tweevoudigh onderwijs van de Hemelsche en Aerdsche globen (Twofold instruction in the use of the celestial and terrestrial globes). In the 1660s, Moxon published his highly successful A Tutor to Astronomie and Geographie. Or an Easie and speedy way to know the Use of both the Globes, Cœlestial and Terrestrial : in six Books, which went through many editions, however the first edition was just an English translation of Blaeu’s earlier manual.

The Dutch painter Jan Vermeer often featured globes and maps in his paintings and it has been shown that these are all reproductions of products from the Blaeu publishing house.

Vermeer’s Art of Painting or The Allegory of Painting (c. 1666–68)
With Blaeu Wall Map
Google Art Project Source: Wikimedia Commons

Jan Vermeer The Astronomer with Blaeu celestial globe and right on the wall a Blaeu wall map
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Jan Vermeer The Geographer with Blaeu terrestrial globe and again right a Blaeu wall map
Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Blaeu wall map used in Vermeers’ The Astronomer and The Geographer

We tend to emphasise politicians, artists and big name scientists, as the people who shape culture in any given age but the cartographic publishing houses of Hondius and Blaeu made significant contributions to shaping the culture of The United Provinces in the so-called Dutch Golden Age and deserve to be much better known than they are.