Articles about Maps

In the first half of the 17th century the publishing house Hondius / Janssonius / Blaeu dominated the map publishing in Europe. It is known that at the beginning of the 17th century the French publishers went to Amsterdam, buying those maps not available in Paris.

The Amsterdam publisher Cornelis Danckerts the elder made selling trips to Paris and was associated with Melchior Tavernier, who became at the beginning of the 16th century the most important publisher in Paris. He was very much influenced by the Dutch and must have visited Amsterdam on a regular basis. In 1638 he paid 500 pounds to H.Hondius, and 1000 pounds to Willem Blaeu, most likely in payment for maps he sold in depot.

Printed maps, either by woodblock, copper- or steel engraving were usually bound into an atlas, and a larger number was sold black and white.
A substantial number however was colored by hand, and a very small number even heightened with gold or silver. As many atlases produced during the 16th - 17th century were produced for rich merchants, noblemen and collectors, many of these atlases where coloured for decorative reason.

This page offers information on the different aspects of Map collection.
Our best advice is to buy a map or two you find interesting. Try to learn about the map. Who published it how and when? What information does it contain that is interesting? Why? What is omitted? The collector would be surprised how much can be learned from this approach.

When you want to take good care of you maps and prints then you might find the following information usefull.

In the year 1138, the royal palace at Palermo, Sicily, was the scene of a long-awaited meeting between an unusual Christian king and a distinguished Muslim scholar. As his visitor entered the hall, the king rose, took his hand and led him across the carpeted marble to a place of honor beside the throne. Almost at once the two men began to discuss the project for which the scholar had been asked to come from North Africa: the creation of the first accurate—and scientific—map of the entire known world.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have been born into another home, culture, or religious system?
We’ve all probably questioned what our beliefs and values would look like through different eyes.
Below is a comparison of major worldviews in the last 2000 years.

Museums keep their storage areas at an optimum temperature of around 70 degrees F, and a relative humidity of 50%. If conditions cannot be kept to this ideal (and historic houses, for example, often are not air-conditioned), avoiding extremes, such as the very high heat in an attic, and avoiding major fluctuations, such as an unheated building that gets cold in the winter, but hot in the summer, should help from a preservation standpoint.