Willem Janszoon Blaeu, 1571-1638

by Edward Luther Stevenson

Blaeu’s map may be considered a remarkably excellent record of geographical knowledge to date. Most of his striking errors in continental outlines are the common errors of the day. In the Old World, for example, Africa has a breadth of more than eighty degrees, and the east coast of Asia, particularly its northern half, is far from accurate, but he has given us a representation of the extreme northeast section which is superior to that laid down on the large world map of his fellow countryman Hondius. The latter clearly suited his representation to a belief in a perfectly open sea route to China and the distant Orient, showing a great breadth of sea between Asia and America in the region of Bering Strait, while Blaeu has here a fairly accurate record of the geographical features of the region, inserting the name “Streto de Anian.” The Mediterranean has much too great an extension in longitude, and is too narrow; the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea have each a strikingly erroneous representation as well as location. The great austral continental land called “Magallanica,” in the New World hemisphere, is that which so commonly appears in the world maps of the day. In the New World, North America is made to extend through more than one hundred and sixty degrees of longitude, while South America is given a breadth of more than sixty degrees, and its general outline is not well done, though there is here clearly an improvement over the maps of Mercator and of Ortelius. Blaeu has retained the erroneous representation of the “Martin Forbischers Strate” at the southern extremity of Greenland; he includes “Frislandia” south of “Islandia”; “I dos Demonios” east of “Terra de Labrador”; “Brasil” west of “Hibernia al Yrlandia,” “As Mann” to the southwest; “S. Brandan” near “C. d. Breton.” For the region north of Europe and Asia, the map is especially interesting, making record here of the latest attempts under Willem Barentszoen and other less distinguished explorers from Holland who undertook to find a northeast passage to China before 1605. That part of “Nova Zemla” which was visited is laid down, as are also “Nieuland” and “Beeren Eylandt,” the names of all places designated being in the Dutch language, though an extensive legend north of Nova Zemla, calling attention to the efforts of his countrymen to find a northeast passage, is given in Latin, as are all the more lengthy legends. A comparison of the maps of Hondius and Blaeu in this particular region is interesting, the latter preparing his map before the voyage of Henry Hudson, the former making record of Hudson’s attempt to sail through this Arctic sea and noting that he had discovered a great ice barrier, “Glacies ab Hudsono detect anno 1608.” Finding it impossible to make this passage, it will be recalled that Hudson decided to turn his expedition to the west and the northwest, reaching in due course of sailing the east coast of North America, which he explored in his two voyages from Hudson River to Hudson Bay, losing his life in this great northern sea, which bears his name, in the year 1611. Blaeu has inscribed numerous legends in the northern and northeastern sections of North America, calling attention in one of these to the expeditions of Columbus, Vespucci, Cortereal and Verrazano, in another to the expedition of Forbischer in 1577, and in yet another to the explorations of Davis in 1585, 1586, 1587. Numerous legends, it may here be noted, appear in different parts of the map, either descriptive of the region in which they respectively appear or calling attention to certain astronomical and geographical questions, as, for example, the lengthy legend on sheets fourteen-fifteen, sheet seventeen and sheet eighteen. In a map of this character one may say the particular scientific and historical value lies in the latest records it contains relative to exploration and discovery. Without giving here the numerous specific references to such events, or to their results as they relate to the expansion of geographical knowledge, it may be stated that Blaeu’s map is one of the richest of the period. His geographical names in the Old World alone extend into the thousands, and for the New World those both of coast and of interior are exceedingly numerous.

Blaeu has called especial attention to the four distinguished explorers who prior to the time of the issue of his map had circumnavigated the globe, placing their portraits in an elaborate cartouche south of South America and calling attention to their success in a somewhat elaborate legend. The four represented are “Ferdinandus Magallanes,” “Franciscus Dracus,” “Thomas Candish” and “Oliverus van der Nort,” the course of the latter being conspicuously traced on the map, his circumnavigation at this time attracting considerable attention, particularly in the Netherlands. The artistic adornment of Blaeu’s map is not its least attractive feature. Its elaborate border, so much of it at least as remains, there being evidence that at both top and bottom much has been cut away, alone gives it almost first place among the fine examples of copper engraving of the period. On the right and the left we find representations of “London,” “Hamburgh,” “Mexico,” “Cusco,” “Dantzik,” “Moskow,” “Bergen,” “Stockholm,” alternating with representations of typical people of the earth, such as “Groenlandi,” “Chilienses et Peruviani,” “Brasilienses,” “Moscovitae,” “Chinenses et Japonenses.” The “Rex Hispania,” “Imperator Romanorum,” “Imperator Turcarum” and “Rex Chinarum” appear in martial array and are given places of special prominence near the top of the map, while the “Rex Abissinorum,” “Rex Persearum,” “Magnus Cham Tartarorum” and “Magnus Dux Moscoviae” command in corresponding positions at the bottom. In his representations of the celestial hemispheres he gives special credit to Tycho Brahe and to Frederik Houtman for his information. Parallels and meridians are drawn at intervals of ten degrees, the prime meridian passing through the islands of “S. Michiel” and “S. Maria.” Compass roses are numerous, two of these being especially conspicuous by reason of the fact that with them appear the Dutch names of the thirty-two compass points or directions, and the radiating lines serve as loxodrome lines. No less than thirty ships are represented sailing the oceans in all parts of the world, carrying either the pennant of Spain, of Portugal, of Holland or of England. A few of these are curiously interesting, there having been an attempt to fashion them after the manner of the countries to which they belong, as, for example, a Japanese vessel off the coast of Japan, “Navis qua Japonenses utuntur quae illis Champan dicitur,” and an open boat in the Pacific near the Strait of Magellan, “Huiusmodi navicularunt forma freti magellaniei accolis in usu est.” Sea monsters are numerous, and Neptune is represented in certain parts carrying either a trident, a pennant of Spain or one of Portugal. Blaeu has not omitted the representation of numerous land animals thought to be native to the regions in which they appear, as in Africa the lion, the tiger, the elephant, the camel, the ostrich, the crocodile; in South America the llama, the alpaca, the monkey, the armadillo, the parrot; in North America the bison, the opossum which is curiously fashioned, the fox and the bear.

Reference has been made to the striking similarity in arrangement and style of the descriptive titles of the Blaeu and the Hondius large World Maps. This similarity is further traceable literally in hundreds of details, forcing upon us the suggestion that Hondius borrowed extensively from Blaeu, since the map of the latter is of the earlier date. To but a few of the more striking evidences of borrowing, however, can attention here be directed. The fact is exceedingly interesting that many of the objects otherwise similarly drawn are reversed in position as represented on the maps. Blaeu turns the faces of his portraits of Magellan and Drake to their left, of Van der Noort and Candysch to their right; Hondius has reversed the position. Most of Blaeu’s ships sail in a direction opposite to that in which the ships of Hondius are made to sail, the location of the several ships being, however, practically the same on the two maps; the most ornamental compass roses are placed in identically the same positions; the dedications of the maps and the addresses to the reader are similarly placed in ornamental cartouches, which, however, in the details of their decorations differ slightly; each has a somewhat elaborate representation of the cannibals in eastern South America, but in their details the pictures are reversed. The line of the ecliptic passes south of the equator in the western hemisphere, and northward in the eastern hemisphere on the Blaeu map, and this Hondius has reversed; the position of Blaeu’s griffin and tiger in the heart of Africa has been reversed by Hondius. Not to extend such comparisons further, it may be stated that a study of the two maps with these similarities, even in minute details in view, can not fail to interest. May there not, therefore, have been good reason for Blaeu’s complaint expressed to the States General in 1608? In this, as before stated, he prayed for protection against those who were taking from his work without credit.

[PRINTER’S MARK OF THE BLAEU PRESS]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aa, Abraham Jacob van der. Biographische woordenboek der Nederlanden. Haarlem, 1853. Vol. II, pp. 578-580.

Anonymous. W. J. Blaeu’s Antheil an der Bestimmung der Erdlängen. (Das Ausland. November, 1875. Stuttgart, 1875. Vol. XLVIII, No. 44, pp. 865-867.)

Anonymous. A Bibliographical Curiosity. (Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal. New Series. May 31, 1851. Edinburgh, W. & R. Chambers, 1851. Vol. XV, pp. 374-376.)

Notice of Blaeu’s Atlas, 12 vols., 1667.