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Old maps by
G. Mercator

Celebrating the 500th anniversary of Gerardus Mercator's birth
Gerardus Mercator (1512 – 1594)

Cartographer, mathematician and globemaker. Pupil of Gemma Frisius in Louvian. From 1537 he worked as a cartographer for his own. 1552 he moved to Duisburg. There he made his most famous maps: 1554 the map of Europe on 15 sheets, 1564 the map of the British Isles on 8 sheets, and 1569 the map of the World on 18 sheets, the first one using Mercator's projection.

He planned to edit an extensive cosmography starting at the beginning of the world, with a description of the sky, the countries and the sea, with a genealogy, a political history, and a detailed chronology. Last one he already published in 1569 and the first cartographic part of his cosmography - a Ptolemy's Geographia with 28 maps - appeared in 1578. From 1585 he published an atlas with modern maps in five parts. 1585 he issued the first three parts with 51 maps, 1589 the fourth part with 22 maps, and 1595  the fifth part was published posthumously with 29 maps by his son Rumold Mercator.

All 102 maps are signed in the plates 'Per Gerardum Mercatorem'. The fifth part was completed with a map of the world and maps of the 4 continents which were made by Mercator's  son Rumold Mercator (c1545-1599, World and Europe) and by his grandsons Gerard Mercator the Younger (c1565-1656, Asia and Africa) and Michael Mercator (c1567-c1600, America) which both were the sons of Arnold Mercator (1537-1587), who engraved together with his eldest son Johannes Mercator (c1562-c1595) most of the maps of Ptolemy's Geographia from 1578.

Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612) aquired the plates for Mercator's atlases in 1604, which he extended and re-published from 1606 - with a text by his brother-in-law Petrus Montanus.

About 500 Years Mercator see also the website of the IMCoS Symposium 2012 in Vienna under www.mercator-500.at

Please, click on a picture for more information.

Mercator was planning to write a Cosmography describing Creation, Heaven and Earth, Genealogy and the History of the World in five parts. First ideas about this work we find in the introduction of his Chronologia, published in 1569:

A) The creation of the world, published posthumous as introduction of his Atlas from 1595
B) Astronomy: Description of the heaven, not published
C) Cartography: Mapping of the World in three parts:
    - A modern geography, published as Atlas in five parts from 1585
    - A Ptolemy's Geography with 28 maps, published in 1578.
    - An ancient geography, not published
D) Genealogy and History of the World, published as text to his maps in the atlas
E) Chronologia, published in 1569

In 1578 the Ptolemy's Geography was published as the first part of the Cartography of Mercator's Cosmography with 28 maps.

Title: "Tabulae Geographicae Cl. Ptolemei ad mentem autoris restitutae & emendatae. Per Gerardum Mercatorem ... Coloniae Agrippinae Typis Godefridi Kempensis. Anno Virginei Partus, MDLXXVIII."

The following offered 18 maps are from the first edition of this Ptolemy's Geography by Gerhard Mercator, printed and published by Godfried Kempen (Godefridi Kempensis), Cologne 1578.

All offered maps have a very nice original colouring, most of them have broad margins and they are - if not mentioned otherwise - in very good to perfect condition, wide margins partly a little bit stained.

Gerardus Mercator after Claudius Ptolemy, 1st edition 1578:

France

Alps - Adria - Italy

Italy with Corsica

Sardinia and Sicily

The Balkans

Greece and the Aegean Sea

Northern Africa, region of Libya

Northern Africa

Turkey and Cyprus

Sarmatia

The Caucasus area

Near East

Middle East - Persia

Arabian Peninsula

Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan

India

Mainland Southeast Asia

Taprobana, Ceylon

Maps of the World and 4 continents:
Jodocus Hondius after Gerardus Mercator, Amsterdam 1607

World

Europe

Africa

America

Asia

In the following we offer you some maps from a Mercator-Hondius Atlas from 1616.

Title: „Gerhardi Mercatoris Atlas sive Cosmographiae Meditationis de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura Denuò auctus Editio Quarta. Sumptibus & typis aenais Judoci Hondij, Amsterodami An. D. 1616.”

All offered maps have a very nice original colouring and are - if not mentioned otherwise -  in very good condition.

Rügen

Prussia

Greece and the Aegean Sea

Ottoman Empire

In the following we offer you some maps from a later Mercator-Hondius Atlas, published by Henricus Hondius in 1633, verso with French text.

Title: „Gerhardi Mercatoris et I. Hondii Atlas ou Representation du Monde Universel ...”

All offered maps have a very nice original colouring and are - if not mentioned otherwise -  in very good condition.

Gerhard Mercator and Jodocus Hondius

England

Southwest England

Duchy of Savoy

Marocco, Canary Islands

Tierra del Fuego

In the following a few maps from an "Atlas Minor" (pocket size atlas) by Johann Janssonius after Gerardus Mercator, engraved by Abraham Goos and Pieter van den Keere, published in Amsterdam 1628.

All offered maps are nicely handcoloured and  - if not mentioned otherwise - in a perfect condition. All maps are numbered at upper right and matted. A fine selection:

World and 4 continents

Holland

Groningen

Friesland, Groningen

Utrecht

Gelderland

Belgium

Denmark

Iceland

Scandinavia

Russia, Belarus, Ukraine

Russia, Belarus, Ukraine

Ukraine, Crimea peninsula

Bohemia

Crete and other Greek islands

Virginia / East Coast

Southeast Asia

more maps after Mercator by Hondius:

 British Isles

The Netherlands, Zealand

Corsica

maps after Mercator by Blaeu:

Bavaria

Salzburg - Carinthia

Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegowina, Serbia

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