Atlas title page – Johannes Janssonius, 1649

THE FOUR CONTINENTS AND SCIENCE – JANSSONIUS’ NOVUS ATLAS, 1649

“Novus Atlas, Das ist Welt-Beschreibung mit schönen newen ausführlichen Taffeln”, title page for the German edition of the “Novus Atlas” by Johannes Janssonius, published in Amsterdam in 1649. Engraving by Daniël van den Bremden, signed at lower right “DVBremden fecit”, with the title printed in letterpress on a separately applied sheet. Contemporary hand colouring with gold highlights. Approx. 50.2 × 29.8 cm (sheet).

At the top, cartography is presented as a science closely linked to astronomy. Scholars study celestial and terrestrial globes, while at the centre a large armillary sphere is raised aloft. The sun, stars and other heavenly bodies appear among the clouds. The measuring and description of the earth are thus placed within a much broader cosmographic framework: to map the world, one also needed an understanding of the movements of the celestial bodies and of the mathematical order of the universe.

Around the central title panel, the four continents then known to Europeans are represented allegorically. To the left stands Africa, as a dark-skinned woman surrounded by, among other animals, an ostrich and lions. On the right, a woman with feathers, bow and arrows personifies America. At lower left sits the crowned figure of Europe, surrounded by livestock, fruit and other signs of abundance; opposite her is Asia, in exotic dress and flanked by, among other animals, an elephant and a camel. These personifications and their exotic animals follow the seventeenth-century European pictorial tradition in which the continents were represented through characteristic dress, animals and products.

The title itself proclaims the ambitious scope of the atlas: “Welt-Beschreibung mit schönen neuen ausführlichen Taffeln, Inhaltende Die Königreiche und Länder des gantzen Erdreichs, Abgetheilt In vier Theile” [a description of the world with new and detailed maps, containing the kingdoms and countries of the entire earth, divided into four parts].

Johannes Janssonius (1588–1664) was one of the most important Amsterdam map publishers of the seventeenth century. Through his marriage to Elisabeth Hondius, he became connected with the publishing family of Jodocus Hondius. From the 1630s onward, he worked closely with his brother-in-law Henricus Hondius on further and greatly expanded editions of the Mercator-Hondius atlas. Under Janssonius, this cartographic enterprise developed into the Novus Atlas and ultimately into a monumental atlas in eleven volumes.

This title page is characteristic of the luxurious Amsterdam atlas production of the mid-seventeenth century, in which scientific knowledge was combined with an elaborate allegorical pictorial programme.

Price: Euro 425,-