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JANSSONIUS, J.  Novus Atlas Absolutissimus... Die Wasser-Welt, oder See-Atlas
In folio, with 6 additional charts, total 39 charts. Amsterdam, 1657 [after 1664]


Although pilot guides, or rutters, supplemented by charts had been produced as early as 1584, Janssonius must be credited with the production of the “first real sea-atlas”, which contained “a collection of charts in folio size, to serve as an atlas for general purposes” (Van der Krogt).
Some Anglo-Italians might put forward for that title Robert Dudley’s Acarno del Mare – a work of numerable firsts, published in 1646 – but it was not until the second edition of 1661 that all the charts in it were uniformly bound.
Also prof. Koeman states, the “first sea-atlas (in the real sense of the word) printed in the Netherlands”.
It was first published in 1650, containing 23 charts and ten historical maps, and formed the fifth volume of Janssonius’ five volume ‘Atlas Novus’. In 1657, Janssonius issued a new, six-volume edition of the ‘Atlas Novus’. For this edition he added nine new charts to the ‘Waterwereld’, removed the historical maps, and reset the text. As well as being issued within the ‘Atlas Novus’, the ‘Waterwereld’ was also issued separately.

This is the First German text edition of the Maritime Atlas Volume 9 of the "Novus Atlas Absolutissimus".
Volume IX : engraved frontispiece (highlighted in gold), 39 charts, thus 6 extra charts by Visscher ("Insulae Americanae", "Insula Matanino", "Novi Belgii", "Indiae orientalis", "Insularum Melitae" et "Insula Candia"). The atlas is bound in very rich contemporary Dutch publisher's paneled vellum, each cover elaborately decorated in gilt in two panels with fillets of broad floral roll tools, large floral inner corner-pieces and central floral cartouche surrounding an armillary globe. Some charts have slight browning and offsetting due to oxidation of paint. With usual  text pages browning. 

The "Novus Atlas Absolutissimus" is the most developed of the editions of the "Novus Atlas", of which only the Latin edition arrived at the final state of the "Atlas Maior". The atlas comprises eleven volumes, formed (just as the Latin and Dutch editions) by splitting the five volumes of the "Atlas Nouveau" and by supplementing with a number of newly-engraved maps and with maps published by Nic. Visscher. Contrary to the Latin and Dutch atlases Janssonius printed new letterpress titles and new indexes for the German edition. The index includes the new maps.
The atlases were probably made in a very small number of copies and later obviously only made to order. This can explain the variation in letterpress titles and title-pages. When letterpress titles were out of print, the later made-to-order copies have letterpress titles composed by cutting and pasting of words, sometimes even syllables or letters. The Visscher maps occur in various states.

The atlas includes some very decorative and important charts and maps:

Northeast/ New York City. JANSSON J./ VISSCHER, C. J. Novi Belgii Novaeque Angliae... 18 ¼ x 21 ½ inches. A most attractive example of a map that is as historically important as it is beautiful. It was the culmination of all the surveys of the area conducted by the Dutch colonists of New Netherlands during their first three decades in America. It is also the first printed map to delineate the shape of Manhattan with relative accuracy; it had been shown as a triangle earlier. Also, English towns that were just being settled at the time, such as Milford, Guilford, Stratford, and Stamford, are shown along the Connecticut shoreline. Every Indian tribe encountered by the colonists, most of which are long extinct, as well as every town and settlement in existence at the time, are believed to be on this map.
The map in its original form was part of a protest by New Netherlands colonists against the policies of the Dutch West India Company, the organization that sponsored the colonization of New York. The author of this original was possibly A. van der Donck, a lawyer who was an early resident of New Amsterdam and who led the protest of the colonists.
The view of New Amsterdam at the southern tip of Manhattan in the lower right hand corner is based on the second earliest image of the city. It is believed to be a generally accurate though sanitized depiction of New Amsterdam approximately 25 years after initial settlement. The view reveals a modest but charming village set on the rolling landscape that characterized Manhattan topography in its virgin state. See below for Joep De Koning’s new research on the origins and dating of the view.
Burden 315, state 4; Tooley, America, no. 5, p. 284; Augustyn/ Cohen, Manhattan in Maps, pp. 32-33; J. De Koning, “From Van der Donck to Visscher” in Mercator’s World, July/ August 2000, pp. 28-33.


"Mar di India", covers the area between the Cape of Good Hope and Korea (INS: CORAI) and Japan. It owes its importance to the rendering of the coastline of Australia, which bears the name 'TERRA DEL ZUR'. Of the results of the Carstensz expedition in 1623, only those of the ship Pera on the West Coast of Cape York Peninsula are shown. The results of the voyage of the Arnhem are omitted. The discoveries of the Vianen in 1628 are rendered.

Mar del Zur Hispanis Mare Pacificum: the first map of the Pacific to show California as an Island and the earliest map of the Pacific to appear in a Dutch Atlas. From the string of fictitious islands in the South Pacific, to the recently discovered coastlines of Australia and New Guinea, to "Japon" and "Corai" and Terra Incognita in the north. Ref.: McLaughlin 11; Tooley pl 30; Burden 292; Potter p.129; Wagner 359; Leighly pl VI.

Much attention is paid to the Northern region, a water way considered for a long time for reaching the East. The Pole maps both in circular form rank among the highlight of Dutch map making and are decorated with whaling and maritime scenes. The chart of the South pole "Polus Antarcticus", is predating the first appearance of New Zealand and Van Dieman's Land

Tabula Anemographica Seu Pyxis Nautica. . . oder des See-Compasses. . .
Over the centuries, an increased diversity of names for the winds and ambiguity about the direction they came from, produced a multitude of different wind systems. To create order out of the tangled confusion of names and directions, cartographers produced wind roses such as this by Joannes Janssonius in 1650. Thirty-two points (directions) are shown and labeled with various directional names for the winds. But to sailors plying the waters of the open oceans, a wind blowing from Thrace (Thracias) lost all relevance in defining direction. Eventually, the wind rose, overburdened by a multiplicity of names and obtuse symbolism, gave way to the directional system of north, east, south, and west, with their intermediate compounds, as used today.