Architectural title page with fish bowl and flowers

Johannes Janssonius was an Amsterdam publisher, bookseller, and mapmaker who became one of the leading figures in the continuation of the Mercator-Hondius atlas tradition. In 1612 he married Elisabeth Hondius, daughter of Jodocus Hondius I, and in 1630 he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law Henricus Hondius. Their Atlantis maioris appendix, sive pars altera of 1630 expanded the Mercator-Hondius atlas project and placed the firm in direct competition with the Blaeu publishing house.

In 1638, the atlas was renamed Atlas Novus and expanded to three volumes. The following year, the French edition, Nouveau théâtre du Monde ou nouvel atlas, appeared with a title page for vol. 2 (303) inspired by Willem Jansz. Blaeu’s 1630 design (351). This 1643 title page reuses the same broad architectural and allegorical framework, but replaces the central title panel with a still-life scene of a glass bowl of fish and a vase of flowers. The lower cartouche gives the imprint: Amsterdami, Apud Iohannem Ianssonium. Anno 1643. The design is organised around a grand architectural structure illuminated by divine light from the four Hebrew letters of God’s name. The structure is supported by two Corinthian columns and filled with allegorical figures representing knowledge, nature, and the cosmos. Above it is a large armillary sphere, with the ecliptic and zodiac signs, symbolising celestial order.

Flanking the sphere are Apollo, god of the Sun, holding his lyre and sceptre, and Juno, whose milk was traditionally associated with the formation of the Milky Way. Around them are personifications of the four elements: Air with a chameleon, Fire with stone and flint, Earth with fruit and flowers, and Water with a pouring urn and two-pronged fork. Below, two scholars demonstrate celestial and terrestrial globes to students or scribes. One teaches with a celestial globe, while the other uses a terrestrial globe and dividers. These scenes present geography and astronomy as forms of learned instruction, observation, and recorded knowledge.

The composition is framed by personifications of the continents. Europe appears crowned and holding a sceptre, with a cornucopia and open book as signs of prosperity and learning. Asia is shown with rich dress, incense, a crescent-topped staff, and a camel. America and Africa are presented through conventional European allegorical attributes: America with feathered dress, weapons, and a club; Africa with a staff, balsam, and an elephant. In the upper niches, figures associated with Peru and Mexico extend the atlas’s claim to encompass the wider world. The still life at the centre appears to have been pasted over the original title panel, giving this version a different emphasis from 303. Instead of naming a specific atlas volume, it introduces natural history — fish, flowers, glass, and water — into the title-page design. The sheet therefore frames Janssonius’s atlas project as a work concerned not only with geography and cosmography, but also with the natural world.