From: DESCRIPTIO TOTIVS GVINEAE TRACTVS…, in NAVIGATIO AC ITINERARIVM, by Jan Huygen Van Linschoten. This map by Willem Barents is perhaps the most important map of the far northern regions. It is the first map to show Spitsbergen, here called Het nieuwe land, and continues the tradition of depicting the mythical Frisland. It is engraved by Baptista von Doetecum and provides another example of the clear, detailed, visually appealing engraving associated with this family.

Although it may be considered an Arctic (or polar) map or a sea chart, its emphasis is on Scandinavia as well as the Arctic. As the title informs, it is a “Description of the three navigations made by the Dutch to the North of Norway, Muscovy, Novaya Zemlya, and through the Waygats or Strait of Nassau as well as the part of Greenland at 80 degrees … by Willem Barents of Amsterdam, the famous pilot.” The smaller cartouche at the lower right tells us that the map is “Edited by Cornelis Claesz, engraved by Baptista à Doetechum. ao. 1598.”

Willem Barents was a Dutch explorer and cartographer. In 1594 he made the first of three voyages to the Arctic in search of a northeast passage. He reached the west coast of Nova Zembla and sailed along it as far as 77o N. A second voyage the following year was forced to turn back because of the pack ice. The third voyage began in 1596. This time, the expedition discovered (perhaps re-discovered would be more accurate, taking into account the voyages of the northern peoples in Viking times) Svalbard, and sailed around the northern tip of Nova Zembla, where the ship was trapped in ice. When the ships could not free themselves the next year, the crews left them and attempted to return. Most of them succeeded; however Barents himself did not survive the attempt.

The tracks of Barents’ third voyage, the one on which he died, are drawn on the map, beginning from Holland. The map was published posthumously in 1599 by Jan Huygen Van Linschoten in NAVIGATIO AC ITINERARIVM, one of his several volumes of travels. The map is bound before the section on the north titled “HISTORIA TRIVM NAVIGATIONVM BATAVORVM IN SEPTENTRIONEM”, which appears in the second part of this work (DESCRIPTIO TOTIVS GVINEAE TRACTVS…). Linschoten actually accompanied Barents on the first two voyages, but not on the third.

A reduced size copy of the Barents map was published by the de Bry brothers beginning in 1599. A further, just slightly smaller but much simplified copy was published in Johannes Pontanus, Rerum et urbis Amstelodamensium historia, in 1611 in Amsterdam. Although the two names of Spitsbergen and Svalbard are often used interchangeably, this is not technically accurate. Svalbard refers to an archipelago of four major and approximately 150 smaller islands that is Europe’s northernmost territory. Spitsbergen is the largest of the islands, accounting for about 60% of Svalbard’s area of 63,000 square kilometres. Bagrow fig.59, p.169. Ginsberg, ‘Septentrionalium Regionum’ no. 29.