Search Results

This book is an exposition of an important, yet previously unknown chapter in the history of Dutch maritime cartography. While Amsterdam was developing into Europe’s most vital commercial hub in the seventeenth century, demanding and controlling the production of maps and sea-charts, a major School of Cartography was already flourishing in the so-called ‘Kop van Noord-Holland’ region just north of Amsterdam. This School specialised in the production of small-scale charts of larger areas, including the European coastlines and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Its masters used to call themselves ‘caert-schrijvers’ or ‘map-scribes’ when clarifying their profession. The cities of Enkhuizen and Edam were important trading ports and as such provided an ideal environment for developing into centres of cartography, serving sea-borne navigation.
Apart from the well-known printed pilot guides by Lucas Jansz Waghenaer, the output of these ‘caert-schrijvers’ consists mainly of manuscript charts on vellum. Copies, though few they are, nowadays can be found across the globe. Sea-charts provided invaluable on-board navigation assistance to ship captains. However, another surprising contemporaneous purpose for financing these charts become popular. Rich ship owners and merchants would commission new charts to serve as wall-decoration as well as a reference point for their maritime-related conversations. They feature a decorative lay-out filled with magnificent colours. Moreover, many of these charts are embellished with miniature paintings, certainly making them some of the most beautiful exemplars ever produced by Dutch cartography during its Golden Age.

This is the last and final volume in the series Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica. This serie is the result of the author's investigations, carried out during the past thirty years in numerous Dutch and foreign collections. In this way rare cartographic material is now more easily accessible. The work is monumental in every respect, and it is indispensable for private as well as public reference collections.
This volume focuses exclusively on the work of Hessel Gerritsz. (c. 1581-1632), who ranks among the most important and influential cartographers of the early-seventeenth-century Amsterdam. He started his career in Willem Jansz. Blaeu's workshop. About 1608 he established himself as an independent engraver, mapmaker and printer. A selection of his maps has been described and reproduced in full size and his position as chart-maker of the Dutch East and West India Company is discussed in detail.
To present an easier access to the whole series, a general index on names, maps and a dozen thematic subjects of all the nine volumes has been compiled. This index volume is included.

The Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) was for a period of 200 years responsible for the navigation material for the journey between the Netherlands and the Far East and the inter-Asian trade. In this book with the help of recovered archive materials a never published before overview is given of chart material that was used on a VOC-ship.
All navigation charts of the VOC in the 17th and 18th century, drawn on vellum (of which many were traced in foreign collections), are described and analysed in an illustrated cartobibliography. In a supplement extracts of the 'groot-journalen' of the 'Kamer Amsterdam' are published. These give an unique view of the total expenses of the VOC on navigation. The extensive introduction gives more information on the history of the VOC, the chart makers, the routes, the navigation and the instruments. Inlcudes CD-rom with appendices.
Volume 10 of the Utrecht Studies of the History of Cartography (EXPLOKART).

Edited by P. van der Krogt and G. Schilder. Contains the most important studies by professor Koeman, republished on the occasion of his seventieth birthday.

With contributions on geography, travel, rare books, booktrade, collectors and libraries by C. Koeman, G. Schilder, R. Breugelmans, K. van der Horst, F.A. Janssen, C. Reedijk, J. Storm van Leeuwen, E. Braches, E. Cockx-Indestege, I.H. van Eeghen, H. de la Fontaine Verwey, L. Hellinga-Querido, P.F.J. Obbema, B. van Selm, a.o

Edited by G. Schilder, P. van der Krogt and S. de Clercq. Includes bibliography of Marcel Destombes (pp. xviii-xxiv).