The Atlas of Atlases by Philip Parker

Author:Philip Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ivy Press
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Italy, Klencke Atlas, presented 1660

Of more immediately practical use, the Dutch shipping industry’s need for navigational charts meant that the market for Waghenaers (or wagoneers) and rutters (here) continued to be healthy. Willem Janszoon Blaeu’s own Het Licht der Zeevaerdt underwent no fewer than six editions between 1608 and 1629, facing off rivalry from Claeszoon’s new edition of Waghenaer’s original pilot guide (published as Nieuwe thresoor der zee-vaert in 1609), but suffering the occupational hazard of plagiarism, this time by his perennial rival Janssonius. As a result, in 1623 Blaeu published yet another pilot guide, the Zeespiegel (‘Sea Mirror’), which his publishing house guided through 15 editions between then and 1653.

Further versions followed, each seemingly with a more outlandish name than its competitors, all intended, no doubt, to gain attention in a crowded market. Jacob Colom (1600–73) produced the De Vyerighe Colom (‘The Sea Column’) in 1632, its title a playful reference to his own name, which earned its own counter-reference when Pieter Goos published the Zeespiegel in 1650, which in its English edition was entitled ‘The Lightning Column’ (and included an inscription charmingly giving Goos’s address as ‘on the water at the Sign of the Golden Sea Mirror’). Colom rather provocatively challenged Blaeu in De Vyerighe Colom, when he explained that his purpose was to ensure ‘The defects and errors of the previous Light or Mirror of the Sea are exposed and corrected’. He nevertheless managed to survive in the cut-throat world of Amsterdam map publishing, bringing out over twenty editions of the Fiery Column (including in English and French) and also issuing two alternative versions, one in portrait form, called Oprecht Fyrie Columne (‘The Upright Fyrie Columne’), the other in a larger folio format (as De Groote Lichte ofte Vyerighe Colom) in 1651.

By the end of the seventeenth century, the baton of leading cartographer had been taken up in the Netherlands by Johannes van Keulen (1654–1715). His De groote nieuwe vermeerderde zee-atlas ofte water-werelt (‘Great New Enlarged Sea Atlas of the Water World’), published in 1680, was supplemented the following year with a substantial five-volume pilot guide entitled De nieuwe Groote lichtende zee-fakkel (‘The New Great Shining Sea Beacon’), completed in 1681, which provided the first truly global pilot guide for the Dutch market.

Van Keulen’s sea atlas was part of a new genre, a somewhat different stream of atlases to the grand Mercator-style productions of the Blaeus. Unlike the wagoneers and rutters, these covered all the world’s coastlines (rather than merely local routes and ports described by the pilot guides) and could be used on board ship for more general planning, as well as on land by merchants or as a prestige item. Somewhat in the spirit of the old portolans, the first maritime atlas appeared in 1650, published by Johannes Janssonius, appropriately enough under the name the Waterwereld (‘Water world’). It led to a cascade of competitors, including Arnold Colom’s (1624–68) Zee-Atlas ofte waterwereldt (‘Sea Atlas of the Water World’) in 1658 and his father Jacob Colom’s Atlas of werelts-water-deel (‘Atlas of the Watery Part of the World’) in 1663.

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