Hondius, family

The Flemish engraver Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612) was one of the most important mapmakers of the late 16th / early 17th centuries. A notable figure in the Golden Age of Dutch cartography (c. 1570s–1670s), he helped establish Amsterdam as the center of European cartography. He collaborated with other prominent cartographers in London (where he spent the years 1583-1593 to escape religious persecution) and in his native Low Countries. In 1604 he purchased Mercator's plates and published an enlarged version of his atlas in 1606, known as the Mercator/Hondius World Atlas, re-issued in reduced size in 1607 as the "Atlas Minor". Hondius engraved Speed's maps for "The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain" (c1611). His business was continued by his widow and his sons Henricus (1597-1651) and Jodocus Hondius II, and by his son-in-law Jan Janssonius (1588-1664). Jodocus' son Henricus is known as Henrucus Hondius II; confusingly, he came from a different family from the somewhat (older) Hendrik Hondius I (1573-c.1650) who published in the Hague - there were two cartographic Hondius families publishing in the Netherlands contemporaneously.