Nova totius terrarum orbis geographica ac hydrographica tabula

Henricus Hondius was the younger son of Jodocus Hondius I and a central figure in the continuation of the Mercator-Hondius atlas business in Amsterdam. After Jodocus Hondius I’s death in 1612, Henricus and his brother Jodocus Hondius II continued the family publishing house. In 1629, after Jodocus II’s death, thirty-seven Mercator-Hondius copperplates were sold to their competitor Willem Jansz. Blaeu. Blaeu altered these plates and incorporated them into his own atlas, Atlantis appendix sive pars altera, published in 1630. In response, Henricus partnered with his brother-in-law Johannes Janssonius, commissioned replacement plates, and issued the rival Atlantis maioris appendix, sive pars altera in the same year. This competition between the Hondius-Janssonius and Blaeu publishing houses shaped Dutch atlas production for decades.

The double-hemisphere world map was first published in the 1630 Atlantis maioris appendix, sive pars altera. This example is the third state, dated 1663, issued in Janssonius’s Atlas contractus and in Van Loon’s sea atlases. It belongs to the later publication history of a plate first created for the Hondius-Janssonius atlas programme. Like the first state (82), this state retains a faint representation of Terra Australis Incognita, including the name Beach on a promontory south of Java. The name derives ultimately from Marco Polo and was long misplaced by European cartographers onto the northern edge of the imagined southern continent. The map also preserves early Dutch information on northern Australia and New Guinea, including Keerweer, shown as part of New Guinea. This geography reflects the aftermath of Willem Jansz.’s 1606 voyage in the Duyfken, when part of the western side of Cape York Peninsula and the Gulf of Carpentaria was charted but interpreted as an extension of New Guinea. The name Keerweer, meaning “turn back” in Dutch, marks the place where Jansz. decided to return to Java. The map also retains names associated with Jan Carstensz.’s 1623 expedition to the Gulf of Carpentaria, including Valsche Caep (“False Cape”), Hooghe land (“High Land”).

The map therefore shows a transitional geography. Older southern-continent forms remain visible, while VOC discoveries along the northern coast of Australia have been incorporated into the global image. Its treatment of New Guinea and Australia reflects continuing uncertainty about Torres Strait and the relationship between New Guinea, Cape York, and the imagined southern land. The decorative programme remains broadly unchanged from the first state. The upper corners contain portraits of Julius Caesar and Claudius Ptolemy, while the lower corners show Gerard Mercator and Jodocus Hondius I, Henricus’s father. The frame presents the map as part of a lineage joining classical geography, Mercatorian cartography, and the Hondius family atlas tradition. Rodney Shirley and Peter van der Krogt record four states of the plate. The first state is represented in the collection by 82; the second state is dated 1641; this example is the third state, dated 1663; and the fourth state, dated 1666, is represented by 126. Comparing these three collection examples shows how the same world map plate continued to be reissued and revised across the seventeenth century.

Within the collection, this third state is closely connected with the first state (82) and the later fourth state (126). It can also be compared with Willem Jansz. Blaeu’s 1606 world map (9), Joan Blaeu’s later Nova et accuratissima totius terrarum orbis tabula (30and 75), and Jodocus Hondius I’s world map (199), Abraham Ortelius’s Typus orbis terrarum (81), and Polus Antarcticus (114and 18). Together, these works show how inherited ideas of Terra Australis were gradually combined with new Dutch information from Australia and the Pacific.