JAPAN IAPONIA
£1395
Superb hand coloured folio map of Japan by Mercator.
This exceptional folio map is from Gerard Mercator's Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi... The work was published in Amsterdam by Henri Hondius in 1623.
Jodocus Hondius' early 17th century map of the islands of Japan, first issued as one of the new maps in the expended Mercator Hondius Atlas of 1606.
The map is closely modeled on the Ortelius-Teixeira outline of 1595 and includes Korea as an elongated island and the three principal islands of Japan.
The decoration to the map includes sea monsters, a Japanese junk and a Dutch galleon.
Mercator's Atlas was the first true atlas, a word chosen by Mercator himself to refer to a collection of maps which would be adopted by all later geographers.
Very good hand colour
Excellent condition
References: Van der Krogt 1, 8450:1A.1; Walter L., OAG 12.
code : M5045
Cartographer : GERARD MERCATOR
Date : 1623 Amsterdam
Size : 34.5*45 cms
availability : Available
Price : £1395
Gerard MERCATOR
Originally a student of philosophy Gerard Mercator (1512-1594). He became an expert in land surveying and cartography, as well as a skilled engraver.His first maps were published in 1537 (Palestine), and 1538 (a map of the world), although his main occupation at this time was globe-making. He later moved to Duisburg, in Germany, where he produced his outstanding wall maps of Europe and of Britain. In 1569 he published his masterpiece, the twenty-one-sheet map of the world, constructed on what is now known as Mercator's projection.
It was during this period, while teaching cosmography at Duisburg, that Mercator realised the pressing need for a modern collection of maps to supersede the Ptolemaic atlases. This project was gradually expanded to be a complete description of the Universe, both heaven and earth, with other volumes on the Creation, Genealogy and History and a Chronology. The description of the earth was to be in two parts, a modern geography and a Ptolemaic atlas, a massive and over-ambitious project. In fact, only the Chronology and the Ptolemaic Geographia were completed in his lifetime, and it was left to his son, Rumold, to complete and publish the world atlas in 1595. Entitled Atlas, sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi, this was the first time the name "Atlas" was applied to a bound collection of maps, and, like Mercator's projection, has remained in everyday use to this day.
After Rumold's death in 1599, the plates for the atlas were published by Gerard Jr. Following his death in 1604, the printing stock was bought at auction by Jodocus Hondius, and re-issued well into the seventeenth century.
The Atlas Minor was reprinted,reengraved by many 16th century Dutch cartographers including Cloppenberg, Jansson etc.
