Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula

Hendrick Doncker was an Amsterdam bookseller, chartmaker, and publisher best known for sea atlases and practical works of navigation. This double-hemisphere world map is a reworking of an earlier map published by Jacob Colom around 1650. Doncker replaced Colom’s name with his own in the title cartouche, but left the geography largely unchanged.

The map presents the world in two hemispheres, combining geographical knowledge, maritime experience, and inherited cosmographical conventions. Its geography is transitional. A faint outline of Terra Australis Incognita remains in the south, while the outline of Australia is only partly formed and not yet fully named or understood. This uncertainty reflects the uneven absorption of Dutch discoveries into printed cartography before the later consolidation of New Holland’s western, northern, and southern coasts.

The spandrels juxtapose ancient authority and early modern astronomy. In the upper corners, Julius Caesar and Claudius Ptolemy are paired with the elements Fire and Water, while the lower corners show Tycho Brahe and Nicolaus Copernicus with Earth and Air.

Within the collection, this map is closely connected with Doncker’s sea charts of the East Indies and Pacific (33, 203, 234, and 347). These charts focus on particular routes, coasts, and sailing regions, while this world map presents the larger geographical framework in which they belonged.