Flemish and Dutch School
The atlases that reunited the Ptolemaicas charts with the new maps opened the way to the Flemish cartographic school in the sixteenth century and with it to a whole series of technical innovations both in the topographical survey, with the determination of points by means of angles and distances and in the printing. The Netherlands set themselves as economic centre, where navigators, explorers and merchants came together, which allowed to have access to rich information of all the places of the world. Thus, under the impulse of commercial interests, the publishing houses of Amsterdam and Antwerp became great centres of cartographic production. The Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570 which was published in Antwerp was the first modern atlas of the world and had such acceptance that later on more than forty editions were produced in little more than 30 years. It was indeed in the 1588 edition, enriched with 23 maps, when Abraham Oertel incorporated for the first time an exclusive map of the Kingdom of Valencia, entitled Valentiae Regnum, olim Contestanorum… typus that had been engraved in 1585. We emphasize the beauty and precision of the map that was obtained having as exceptional collaborators Jerónimo Muñoz, Pedro de Medina and Ambrosio Morales, although officially is Federico Furió Ceriol since the 1603 edition who appears documented. Nevertheless it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the mentioned ones behind the scenes. The approximate scale of the map is 1:640.000, with the north to the right because of geographic dimensions. The enclave of Caudete appears but the Rincon de Ademuz does not. It shows the courses of 16 rivers, and some lagoons including the Albufera, the relief appears in a very schematic form through the captioning of the mountain ranges. The coast includes 30 watchtowers and for the representation of the villages he uses figures of bell towers as a view of the city to define their magnitude and importance. The toponymic information that the map provides is very rich, and it supposes a novelty regarding the previous maps. The historian Escolano who transcribed great classic works, makes a rigorous review to the incorrectness of some of the place-names proposed by Oertel. The beautiful ornamentation of the map is composed by two ships, one galley and one caravel, a linear scale and the title appears immersed in a much worked trimming.
Abraham Oertel
Título: Valentiae Regni olim contestanorum si Ptolemaeo, edetanorum si plinio credimus typus
Autor: Abraham Oertel
Lugar de edición: Amberes
Año: 1585
Dimensiones: 341 x 478 mm.
Obra: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum
Original: F.G.L
This map of the kingdom of Valencia is the oldest known and it was surveyed by Oertel from notes taken by Jerónimo Muñoz while he verified the Gemma Frisius' triangulation method. The complete work concluded in 1595.
Título: Valentiae Regnum
Autor: Abraham Oertel
Lugar de edición: Amberes
Año: 1603
Dimensiones: 85 x 123 mm.
Obra: Epitome Orbis Terrarum
Original: F.G.L
The Theatrum Orbis Terrarum had his first edition in 1570 and last one in 1612, counting between those years with a total of 31 editions and seven different languages: Dutch (1571), German (1572), French (1572), Spanish (1588), English (1606) and Italian (1608); five supplements or additamenta, were published between 1573 and 1597. Little by little in those editions the own characteristics of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum were being weakened and the public resorted to editions provided by Joan and Willem Blaeu. In 1577 he published an epitome of the theatrum that was translated immediately in later years. The success of this great work was to a large extent by the well-taken care of recording and impression of its maps, collaborating for it with the best ones of the time, like the famous printer Christoph Plantin.
Título: Valentiae Regnum
Autor: Abraham Oertel
Lugar de edición: Roma
Año: 1667
Dimensiones: 79 x 107 mm.
Obra: Tabula Geográfica. Hoja 11. Texto en italiano
Original: F.G.L
Título: Valentiae Regnum
Autor: Abraham Oertel
Lugar de edición: Roma
Año: 1667
Dimensiones: 74 x 100 mm.
Obra: Il theatro del mondo
Original: F.G.L
Gerhard Kremer-Jodocus Hondius
Título: Regni Valentiae Typus
Autor: Gerhard Kremer
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Editores: Jodocus Hondius & Johannes Janssonius & Jan Evertszoon Cloppenburgh
Año: 1607
Dimensiones: 145 x 185 mm.
Obra: Atlas Minor
Original: F.G.L.
Although the excellent personality of the Flemish school is Gerhard Kremer, first in breaking with the ptolemaica authority, his map Regni Valentiae Typus was published posthumously in 1595 within his Atlas sive Cosmographie Mediatonis and is similar to the Oertel's one . Amsterdam was the main source of modern cartography, and elevated its production to the peak of the cartographic art. Each map produces an harmonic effect by its distribution of the elements and these qualities do not belong only to both of the founders of the Flemish cartography, but their successors, emphasizing the Blaeu dynasty that had centred its activity in the six hundred manage to maintain them . The foundation of the Dutch East India Company in 1602 was followed by the creation of a cartographic department that counted on trained staff. Using the famous Mercator projection they were able to produce maps where the sailors could indicate a route in straight line. Its commercial success arrived when Jodocus-Hondius acquired the Kremer's plates and added supplements that enriched them. The first edition of the combined atlas appeared in 1606 and it reached more than 30 editions, before 1640. The minor atlas of Gerhard Kremer was published in first edition by Jodocus Hondius in 1607, and since then it had several reprintings. We are before an edition pertaining to a small volume that was published thinking about the less well- off and free of luxury.
Título: Regni Valentiae Typus
Autor: Gerhard Kremer
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Editores: Jodocus Hondius
Año: 1609
Dimensiones: 350 x 475 mm.
Obra: L’Atlas ou Mediations Cosmographiques
Original: F.G.L
The most famous atlas realized by Kremer, was published posthumously by his sons, Atlas sive Cosmographiae Meditations… in 1595. Publisher Jodocus Hondius bought the plates and the rights of Kremer's work in 1604 and published the first reprint of the same in 1606 adding several maps to it.
Gerhard Kremer-Henricus Hondius
Título: Valentia Regnum ...
Autor: Gerhard Kremer
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Editores: Henricus Hondius & Johannes Janssonius
Año: 1639
Dimensiones: 350 x 470 mm.
Obra: Atlas Novus
Original: F.G.L
The Novus atlas by Henricus Hondius & Johanes Janssonius, follower of the Atlas by Kremer, had editions in Latin, German, French and Spanish. These new editions in the Sixties were accompanied by the parallel prints of the Atlas Minor and Major published alone by Janssonius.
Gerhard Kremer-Willem Blaeu
Título: Valentia Regnum ...
Autor: Gerhard Kremer
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Editores: Willem Blaeu
Año: 1634
Dimensiones: 350 x 495 mm.
Obra: Atlas Novas
Original: F.G.L
In the Atlas Major or Geografía Blaviana, great technical quality work that was translated into several languages, and concretely in its edition of 1672 the titled map Valentiae Regnum Contestan, Ptol. Edetani, Plan was inserted. ., in whose foot it appears the name of Willem Blaeu, author of an Atlas Novas of 1632, whose chalcographic plate would reuse their children and grandson forty years later. Of this map at least six different editions are conserved and in fact it is a copy of the engraving by Oertel, which stands out by its greater neatness and elegance. The Mediterranean appears furrowed by three caravels and contains a compass rose where it appears an ornamental detail, the lily flower, that begins to be used in that century to indicate the north, and in the title block it displays the old coat of arms of the city of Valencia, with a fortress beside a river, which did not have use then as since the fourteenth century had been displaced by the one of the four stripes.
Gerhard Kremer-Joan Blaeu
Título: Andaluzia: continens Sevillam et Cordubam
Autor: Gerhard Kremer
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Editores: Joan Blaeu
Año: 1640-1650
Dimensiones: 360 x 497 mm.
Obra: Theatrum du Monde au Nouvel Atlas
Original: F.G.L
It includes Andalusia, including the south of Extremadura, part of New Castile and the Straits of Gibraltar. It is a reprint of the “Andaluzia and Nova Descript” of Jodocus Hondius, from whom he had acquired 37 plates, where they vary the title blocks only.
Título: Granata, et Murcia Regna
Autor: Gerhard Kremer
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Editores: Joan Blaeu
Año: 1663
Dimensiones: 380 x 490 mm.
Obra: Atlas Major
Original: F.G.L
Published in French in twelve volumes and dated during the reign of Felipe IV. Here it appears the image of a cartographer carrying a compass next to the graphic scale, and a warlike scene between the Spanish and African coasts.
Título: Gallaecia Regnum
Autor: Gerhard Kremer
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Editores: Willem Blaeu
Año: 1635
Dimensiones: 380 x 495 mm.
Obra: Novus Atlas
Original: F.G.L
It belongs to the 1635 edition of the work Novus Atlas, initiated by Willem Janszoon Blaeu and continued by his children, Joan and Cornelius. It is dated during the reign of Felipe IV.
Willem Blaeu
Título: Regnorum Hispaniae nova descriptio
Autor: Willem Blaeu
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Editores: Willem Blaeu
Año: 1631
Dimensiones: 380 x 495 mm.
Obra: Gran Atlas Blaeu
Original: F.G.L
The small-scale general-purpose map of Willem Blaeu on the Iberian Peninsula is one of the oldest compiled for his series of atlases, appearing for the first time in 1631. The title is specific, since it includes the Hispanic kingdoms of Spain and Portugal that were unified during a period of sixty years between 1580 and 1640, as it shows the elaborated coat of arms on the top. The Blaeu Atlas was the most important book that was printed during the seventeenth century. Spain appears represented in volume VIII of this work.
Jerónimo de Chaves
Título: Hispalensis conventus delineatio
Autor: Jerónimo de Chaves
Lugar de edición: Amberes
Año: 1579
Dimensiones: 350 x 460 mm.
Obra: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum
Original: F.G.L
It includes Western Andalusia. It belongs to the work Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Abraham Oertel. Its author was the first university professor of cosmography of the Casa de Contratación . Due to the date of death of the author, the map had to be finalized several years before the date that appears in the stamped image. The date that was included by Oertel in the map has the function to date it to protect his author rights.
Peter van Der Aa
Título: Nueva Mapa de Murcia, Valencia y das Islas Baleares...
Autor: Pieter van der Aa
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Grabador: Willem Goeree
Año: 1714
Dimensiones: 122 x 154 mm.
Obra: Beschryving van Spanjen
Original: F.G.L
The publisher Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733) occupies an outstanding position in history of the Dutch cartography not only because he worked far from Amsterdam, but for the high number of maps that he published. Besides not having access to the Hondius-Janssonius and Blaeu plates, he had to stop in his attempt to compete in the atlas market and to specialize in the publication of geography works that contained out of number local maps. Thus, the 1706-1706 Naaukerige vesameling…or the 1729 Galérie agréable du monde.
Nicolas Visscher
Título: La Castille Propre ou Vieille, et la Nouvelle avec l’Estremadure Castillane ...
Autor: Nicolas Visscher
Lugar de edición: Ámsterdam
Grabador: Peter Schenk II
Año: 1689
Dimensiones: 450 x 764 mm.
Original: F.G.L
It includes Old Castile , New Castile, Valencia, Aragon, the South part of Catalonia and the island of Ibiza. He corresponds to the reprints that were produced by Peter Schenk II, who had acquired the Visscher's plates from his widow. The fame of great publishers Hondius, Jansson and Blaeu entailed the collaboration of very diverse professionals. It appears at the same time a group of minor cartographers that centred their effort in the ornamental part of their works, since they lacked of resources for updating the geographic information that they shaped in their maps. This group of cartographers subsisted in the publishing industry thanks to the great demand of atlases and maps of trips. An example constitutes the workshop of the Visscher family. The initiator of the cartographic activity was Nicholas I (1587-1652), continuing with Nicholas II, his son (1618-1679), and his grandson Nicholas III (1649-1702). He had been apprentice with Hondius, and person in charge of the ornamental part of this publishing house.
