A mapmaking milestone
The story behind Joan Blaeu's Atlas Maior. By Petra Lamers-Schütze
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A printed map could also be purchased from the country itself. If necessary, it was adjusted to the right format for the atlas and embellished. In some cases, an earlier map from a published atlas was used. Naturally, an important source was Ortelius's Theatrum orbis terrarum, from which Blaeu copied many maps. Blaeu also made frequent use of Mercator's Atlas. Another source of maps was copper plates, which could also be acquired abroad. However, one of the simplest methods of map production was to copy a map that another Amsterdam publisher had just put on the market. Authors' rights did not yet exist and privileges gave only limited protection. Sometimes even the decorative elements were copied. The fear of falling behind and losing customers led to merciless competition and underhand practices such as spying to find out where to locate the best maps.
Wealthy citizens, scholars, and collectors were the people who bought these atlases, and it became a status symbol to have the newest and most complete version. The baroque luxury of feeling as if one owned a part of the world was the main attraction of buying and owning such atlases. After 1670, and after the death of both Janssonius und Blaeu, publishers became much more cautious. They didn't want to risk ruin by producing these expensive editions. For the buyer, an atlas could never be large enough. But for the map producer, investment in ever larger atlases with ever greater numbers of maps was too risky a venture. Rich collectors added many maps and topographical prints to their copies of Atlas Maior. To this end they could buy the atlas in loose-leaf form and have it bound only when they felt their collection was complete. Thus were atlases created in dozens of parts, or in some cases, even over a hundred. Today such atlases are known as "collected atlases" or "atlas factice." One of the best known - and one of very few to have been preserved intact - is the atlas of the Amsterdam lawyer Laurens van der Hem. On the basis of Blaeu's Latin Atlas Maior, van der Hem assembled an atlas of 46 parts with approximately 3,000 maps, prints, drawings, and descriptions. This atlas was purchased by Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1730 and after his death came into the possession of the Austrian Emperor. Today, the Atlas Blaeu-van der Hem is one of the showpieces of the Austrian National Library in Vienna and in 2004 was included in the Memory of the World Program by UNESCO.
Page [1] [2]
Page [1] [2]
A printed map could also be purchased from the country itself. If necessary, it was adjusted to the right format for the atlas and embellished. In some cases, an earlier map from a published atlas was used. Naturally, an important source was Ortelius's Theatrum orbis terrarum, from which Blaeu copied many maps. Blaeu also made frequent use of Mercator's Atlas. Another source of maps was copper plates, which could also be acquired abroad. However, one of the simplest methods of map production was to copy a map that another Amsterdam publisher had just put on the market. Authors' rights did not yet exist and privileges gave only limited protection. Sometimes even the decorative elements were copied. The fear of falling behind and losing customers led to merciless competition and underhand practices such as spying to find out where to locate the best maps.
Wealthy citizens, scholars, and collectors were the people who bought these atlases, and it became a status symbol to have the newest and most complete version. The baroque luxury of feeling as if one owned a part of the world was the main attraction of buying and owning such atlases. After 1670, and after the death of both Janssonius und Blaeu, publishers became much more cautious. They didn't want to risk ruin by producing these expensive editions. For the buyer, an atlas could never be large enough. But for the map producer, investment in ever larger atlases with ever greater numbers of maps was too risky a venture. Rich collectors added many maps and topographical prints to their copies of Atlas Maior. To this end they could buy the atlas in loose-leaf form and have it bound only when they felt their collection was complete. Thus were atlases created in dozens of parts, or in some cases, even over a hundred. Today such atlases are known as "collected atlases" or "atlas factice." One of the best known - and one of very few to have been preserved intact - is the atlas of the Amsterdam lawyer Laurens van der Hem. On the basis of Blaeu's Latin Atlas Maior, van der Hem assembled an atlas of 46 parts with approximately 3,000 maps, prints, drawings, and descriptions. This atlas was purchased by Prince Eugene of Savoy in 1730 and after his death came into the possession of the Austrian Emperor. Today, the Atlas Blaeu-van der Hem is one of the showpieces of the Austrian National Library in Vienna and in 2004 was included in the Memory of the World Program by UNESCO.
Page [1] [2]
Atlas Maior
Hardcover, 29 x 44 cm (11.4 x 17.3 in.), 626 pages
$ 200.00
$ 200.00
"The greatest and finest atlas ever published." -Koeman I, Bl 56
Frontispiece for Europe