1615 VAN DEN KEERE, P. - The earliest known printed general map specifically devoted to the Dutch Republic

The oldest known map of the Dutch Republic. An exceptionally rare and historically important map, generally regarded as the earliest known printed general map devoted specifically to the Dutch Republic. It presents the federated northern provinces as a distinct political and geographical entity rather than as part of the traditional Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands.

The map was engraved by the Flemish-born cartographer and publisher Pieter van den Keere, who Latinized his name as Petrus Kaerius. It appeared in Jean-François Le Petit’s Nederlantsche Republycke, published at Arnhem by Jan Jansz. in 1615. Van der Heijden and Blonk place the map first in their cartobibliography of maps of the Republic, thereby marking it as the opening document in the printed cartographic history of the Netherlands.
The map extends from Zeeland and northern Brabant in the south to Groningen, East Frisia and the chain of Frisian islands in the north. The North Sea coast and the large expanse of the Zuiderzee dominate the composition, while the Rhine–Meuse–IJssel river system provides the principal geographical framework of the interior.

Published during the Twelve Years’ Truce of 1609–1621, the map belongs to a decisive period in the formation of the Dutch state. The northern provinces were already functioning as an independent republic, although formal Spanish recognition would not be secured until the Peace of Münster in 1648. The map’s importance is therefore political as well as geographical: by isolating and naming the federated northern provinces, Van den Keere gave visual expression to the territorial identity of the emerging Dutch Republic.

The original 1615 issue is extremely rare. According to the census cited for this example, only two other copies were recorded: a damaged example in Leiden University Library and another preserved in the Atlas Van Stolk collection in Rotterdam. The plate is better known from its later appearances in Jan Everhard Cloppenburg’s editions of Mercator’s Atlas Minor, published in 1630, 1632 and 1636.

Van der Heijden mentions only two other examples: Leiden, UB (damaged) and Rotterdam A.V.S. and this example.

Provenance: Van der Heijden, Steensel.

Reference: H.A.M. van der Heijden and Dirk Blonk, De kaart van de Republiek der VII Provinciën, 1615–1797, 2005, map 1.