Wageningen – Frederick de Wit, ca. 1690

17TH CENTURY WAGENINGEN

Copper engraving from Frederick de Wit‘s town book “Perfecte Aftekeningen der steden van de XVII Nederlandsche provincien in plattegronden” [Perfect Depictions of the Cities of the Seventeen Dutch Provinces in Plans], published around 1690. Coloured by a later (?) hand. Size: 42.2 x 53.5 cm.

In the years following 1624 and the resumption of hostilities in the Eighty Years’ War, the fortifications in the town of Wageningen underwent major changes. The old double moat was re-dug to create a wider, single moat and six new bastions were added. Both the town’s gates -the Nudepoort and the Bergpoort – were rebuilt as barbicans, with a system of double (inner and outer) gates. These new works are clearly included on this map surveyed by Nicolaes van Geelkercken. Even so, he has made a number of glaring errors. The angle of the town wall at the north-eastern ‘Beckaf‘ bastion is much too acute and the ravelin in front of the Bergpoort, as well as the bridge in front of the Broekpoort, are both missing. Van Geelkercken’s map was first published in 1654 in Van Slichtenhorst‘s Geldersse Geschiedenissen. De Wit’s map is an accurate copy of this original version. Outside the Nudepoort stands an inn: the ‘Hof van Gelderlandt‘. A spelling error by Van Geelkercken was also copied. The garden house that Burgomaster Johannes Junius had built on the western bastion in 1643, was named by him Juniushof after its creator, but was written on the map ‘Iunus hoff‘. This mistake has been perpetuated to the present day, in the names of the Junusstraat and the Junushoff theatre. The map here is incomplete. Space has been left in the top left and top right, whereas in a later state the coats of arms of Guelders and Wageningen have been added (less noticeable because the colourist has coloured these blank sections green). The customary cartouche around the legend is also missing.

After the fire that destroyed Joan Blaeu’s publishing house in 1672, Frederick de Wit acquired a part of the copper plates from Blaeu’s estate and reissued them with minor modifications under his own name. However, the map of Wageningen was not included in Blaeu’s town book and thus first appeared around 1690. The number of copies of De Wit’s town book was much smaller than that of Blaeu’s, making the map of Wageningen quite rare.

Frederick de Wit (1630–1706) was an engraver and map seller born in Gouda. Through his marriage to Maria van der Waag in 1661, he obtained citizenship in Amsterdam, where he had been working since 1648. There, he became one of the most renowned cartographers of the second half of the 17th century. Although he was a Catholic, which was not an advantage at the time, his name was included on the city’s list of “good men” from 1694 to 1704.