FIRST HONDIUS EDITION. The 1612 edition of Petrus Bertius’ ‘Caert Thresoor’ was published in Frankfurt and soon after the plates came into the possession of Johannes Cloppenburg. This is presumed to have been before 1616, as in that year Jodocus Hondius Junior re-issued Bertius’ text with an entirely new, expanded series of 221 copperplate maps. Bertius (1565-1629) was the librarian of the University of Leyden and was a brother-in-law to Jodocus Hondius. The maps were slightly larger in size and the book was dedicated to King Louis XIII of France. This is the first edition of this new series of plates and appeared with Latin text. Koeman listed 220 plates in his reference work on Dutch atlases but omitted to list the Bay of Cadiz on page 170.

A rival publication was the miniature Ortelius atlas whose last edition had been in 1612. Another was the ‘Atlas Minor’ published by Jodocus Hondius senior and Johannes Janssonius from 1607. Following Hondius senior’s death in 1612 its publication was continued by his widow and sons in partnership with Janssonius and issues appeared in 1613 and 1614. Since the following edition did not appear until 1620 at the hands of Janssonius alone it appears that the partnership broke up sometime after 1614. This was quite probably the impetus for Hondius and Bertius to work together on a new edition of the ‘Caert Thresoor’.

There were further editions in 1618 with Latin and French text. In the same year, Bertius was appointed Cosmographer to Louis XIII and spent the rest of his life in Paris. Sometime after the plates came into the possession of Willem Jansz. Blaeu whose son Joan in 1637 published an exceedingly rare atlas entitled ‘Atlas Minor sive Tabulæ Geographicæ’. It survives in only three known complete examples. Provenance: Sterling Books; private English collection. Koeman (1967-70) Lan 11A; Nordenskiöld (1979) 15; Phillips (1909-) 5924; Sanderson (1971) NMM 57; Shirley (2004) T.Bert 2a.