The Image of Amsterdam
City Maps as Representations of the City
Enzo Vredegoor
Student Number: 6034950
Research Master: Art Studies
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Master’s Thesis
Supervisor: Lex Bosman
Second Reader: Petra Brouwer
Table of Contents
Introduction……….2
Chapter 1: Amsterdam and Cartography - The City in the Centre.………..….11
Chapter 2: The Mapped City in the Renaissance - A Combination of Conflicting Views……….31
Chapter 3: Amsterdam in the Centre - Ten maps Representing the City.………...….47
Conclusion.………..…102
Bibliography………108
Introduction
Amsterdam attracts a growing number of tourists who stroll through the city centre. Many visitors enjoy walking along the spacious tree lined canals and are amazed by the city’s characteristic structure and typical architecture. To a large degree, the city centre is formed by its legacy from the seventeenth century when Amsterdam functioned as the centre of world trade, finance and cartography.1 The city grew rapidly from the end of the sixteenth century into a metropolis that dominated the Dutch Republic in economic, political and cultural aspects.2 In a period of about eighty years emblematic buildings were constructed and city extensions realized.3 The exceptionally rich decorated city hall and luxurious canal belt were arguably the strongest expressions of Amsterdam’s might, prosperity and conceit.
Following the growth of inhabitants – from 30.000 in 1585 the number rose to 105.000 in 1622 and 170.000 around 16504 – four expansions enlarged the city’s surface at a similar rate. Maps that depict Amsterdam show, like no other type of historical source, this dynamic period of urban development.5 The dozens of maps and bird’s-eye views of Amsterdam were published in the period that the cartography and depiction of cities became increasingly popular and widespread. During the late Renaissance the production of city views exploded all over Europe and cities were of interest as centres of economic, cultural and military power, but their historical and political context also gained interest among the contemporary rulers, the elite and the citizens.6 These images were incorporated in history books and in the first true town atlas by Braun and Hogenberg of which six parts were published between 1572-1618.7 The maps, bird’s-eye views and profiles improved in technical quality while the images became increasingly detailed and recognizable.8
1 Van den Brink and Werner (ed.). Gesneden en gedrukt: 11-13, 21-25. Donkersloot-de Vrij. The World on Paper: 23. Van ’t Hoff. ‘Grote stadspanorama’s’: 82-84.
2 Davids. Zeewezen en wetenschap: 43. See for more on Amsterdam’s growth: Lesger: The rise of the
Amsterdam. And: Carasso-Kok (ed.). Geschiedenis van Amsterdam (5 volumes).
3 Abrahamse. De grote uitleg: 12-15, 20.
4 Ibidem: 34. Vlaardingerbroek. Het paleis van de Republiek: 16.
5 Schilder. Monumenta Cartograpica III: 3. Especially the maps of Bast (1597) and Van Berckenrode (1625) display recent urban developments. Van den Brink and Werner (ed.). Gesneden en gedrukt: 21-22. Schilder writes that literary odes to the city, architecture like the city hall, maps and city views all celebrate the city Amsterdam, its riches and its world-leading position in a comparable manner.
6 Bakker. ‘Opkomst en bloei’: 73. Bakker notices an upswing in the production of cartographical material of all sorts around 1600 in Holland and suggests that it formed a boost of self-confidence in the war against Spain. Woodward. ’Cartography and the Renaissance’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 11, 23. ‘Between 1400 and 1472, in the manuscript era, it has been estimated that there were a few thousand maps in circulation; between 1472 and 1500, about 56.000; and between 1500 and 1600, millions.’ (page 11). Ballon and Friedman. ‘Portraying the City’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 680. Kagan. ‘Phillip II and the Art’: 132.
7 Woodward. ’Cartography and the Renaissance’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 9. Van der Krogt. ‘Wereldsteden uit de zestiende eeuw‘: 148-155. De Smet. ‘De plaats van Jacob’: 478. Wilson. ‘Venice, Print, and the Early’: 41. Benedict, ‘The Visual Reporting’. In: Benedict. Graphic History: 83. Sebastian Münster,
Cosmographia (1544), Guillaume Gueroult, First Book of Figures and Portraits of the Most Famous and Illustrious Cities of Europe (1552), Leandro Alberti, Descrittione di tutta Italia (1553), and Antoine Du Pinet, Plans, Portraits and Descriptions of Several Cities and Fortresses of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Indies and the New Lands (1554) were predecessors of the town atlas. See for more on Braun and Hogenberg. Von Kamptz. Civitates Orbis. (diss.).
8 Manners. ‘Constructing the Image’: 94-97. Manners emphasizes that ‘within the frame of the perspective plan, the mapmaker is also attempting to bring together the experiential and scientific modes of understanding into some degree of harmony and unity, that the concern is with the “truthfulness” of place, with the genius loci of the city, rather than with topographical facts or exact spatial relations.’ (page 95).
The first view of Amsterdam in this manner is the painting from 1538 by Cornelis Anthonisz. The wonderfully constructed city view shows the harbour in front and the crowded, walled city
surrounded by suburbs, extensive grasslands and waterways.9 Important buildings stand out and the streets and canals are clearly visible because of their disproportional size. Curled ribbons of the coat of arms of the city intersect the horizon at the top of the panel. People would have been fascinated to see Amsterdam in this bird’s-eye view.10 The woodcut version (1544) enjoyed such popularity that new editions were printed well into the seventeenth century.11 Another astonishing map was made in 1625 by Balthasar Florisz. van Berckenrode. This perspective plan is highly appreciated for its accuracy and quality of detail.12 Its design and allegorical decorations celebrate Amsterdam as Europe’s most important trading centre.13 Moreover, the quality of the copperplate engraving forms a pinnacle in the oeuvre of Van Berckenrode and Dutch craftsmanship.
The various maps show Amsterdam in times long gone and because they are full of details it is tempting to think that they are accurate, realistic or give an objective depiction of the city.
However, more than is revealed at first sight, these depictions have their own particularities that need a closer look.14 The way in which people visualized the city is significant for the interpretation of a map and the meaning which is given to its content. The angle of incidence – from profile to bird’s-eye view to plan – level of detail, accuracy, decoration programme, text, scale and colouring are essential elements of the city map.15 The variety of maps of Amsterdam show that these aspects were applied in various ways, depending on who made the map and what purpose it had.16 The maps characteristics are related to why, how and for whom a map represented Amsterdam.17 The map as a means of representation can be investigated by further exploring the city maps and questioning their special features. Therefore, the main question is: how were the city maps of Amsterdam which were produced between 1538 and 1664 a means of representing the city?
Questions concerning the features of maps as a medium of representation must be asked. It should be noted that the printed maps under discussion are impressive – both by their size and visual expression – and they provide us a normally unconceivable prospect on the whole city. Moreover, the several editions and the amount of reprints play an evident role in the circulation of the product and thus in the distribution of the image of Amsterdam. By a result of the medium used, a printed map
9 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 24-28.
10 Nutti. ‘The Perspective Plan’: 126-127. The dream of flying as manifested in early modern bird’s-eye views, had its origin in ancient Greek culture.
11 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 32.
12 Ibidem: 67. The map by Van Berckenrode is used as a reliable source by historians. 13 Carasso. ‘Kroniek van het’. In: Bakker and Schmitz (ed.). Het aanzien van Amsterdam: 55.
14 Schulz. ‘de’Barbari’s View of Venice’: 430. Harley. ‘Maps, Knowledge and Power’. In: Cosgrove and Daniels (ed.). Iconography of the Landscape: 287.
15 Schulz. ‘de’Barbari’s View of Venice’: 456. Representations of cities were ideally in form of a bird’s-eye view or a perspective plan according to Schulz. Pinto, ‘Origins and Development’: 35. According to Pinto, the perspective plan as a new type of image was developed after the oblique projection and bird’s-eye view were established, but not ought satisfactory for the representation of cities. Bakker and Schmitz (ed.). Het aanzien
van Amsterdam: 118, 228. Profiles of the city were the absolute best in representing the city compared to
bird’s-eye views or city maps according to Bakker and Schmitz. Jacob, ‘Toward a Cultural History’: 193. Casey.
Representing Place: XIV.
16 Bakker and Schmitz (ed.). Het aanzien van Amsterdam: 100. The authors note that the commercial value was of key importance for the publishers of the products.
17 Woodward. ’Cartography and the Renaissance’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 23-24. Woodward points at the growing awareness of representation itself in the late Renaissance when the cartography business grew rapidly: ‘[t]his resulted in a greater reliance on or more thought given to using artificial codes in cartographic representation.’ (page 23).
could be presented as a gift to visitors or it could be sent in copies all over the world.18 This is a special feature of maps that architecture lacks by nature – the impressive city hall could only be seen by people who visited the city – and rather than texts, illiterate people could “read”19 the maps as well. Paintings come quite close, but they were unique products and instead of the numerous prints, they could not travel around as easily as maps. Did the maps therefore perform as an icon of the city and was it implemented in that way?
Another characteristic of an artificial view on a city from above is that it showed the entire set of fortifications in one image. The ramparts, its gates and bastions were able to be seen as single units from the ground, but an overview on the complete defensive ring – its shape was of great strategic importance – could only be seen through the medium of the map. In various tracts on military architecture in the Renaissance, the ideal and strongest shape of fortifications is discussed. These included numerous plans which often emphasized the fortifications as strong, frightening and even monstrous structures.20 Given that the urban extensions of Amsterdam were preceded by the design and construction of the most ideal fortifications – it had to be cheap, strong and symmetrical so the result was a half ring21 – the city maps stress the fortifications as a formidable barrier. And again, different from what is experienced on street level, the organized structure of streets and canals – so carefully planned in this city22 – is striking when one is looking at a map. How were these aspects implemented in a map’s design and how did it influence the interpretation and the particular
representation of the city?
Other questions of concern are whether the city administration commissioned the maps, and if so, what was their intention?23 Questions about the motives of production also account for the publishing houses and what role did commerce and competition among other publishers play? Is there an aspect of identification and/or of city pride involved?24 This also leads to questions about the price of a map and the shops where they could be bought. Were the maps already printed and on display or were they specially printed when a buyer turned up? And to end this potentially infinite series of questions: who bought city maps of Amsterdam, for what reason and where were the maps displayed in what form? These seems the toughest questions since there is so little information on the buyers-side.
Before discussing the strict periodization and approach to tackle this complex set of questions, the term representation needs further explanation. Concerning the city map, the coloured plane surface represents the city through lines and dots. This is representation on the most direct level and it accounts to nearly all forms of cartography. It is not solely restricted to pictorial elements, since
18 Bakker. ‘Het imago van de stad’. In: Bakker and Schmitz (ed.). Het aanzien van Amsterdam: 57. For example representatives of the Dutch Republic who offered several city portraits to the Sultan of Turkey in 1612. 19 Woodward. ’Cartography and the Renaissance’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 11-12. 20 For more on this subject: Van den Heuvel. “Papiere Bolwercken”. and: Pollak. Military Architecture. 21 Abrahamse. De grote uitleg: 44-49, 120-126, 135-144.
22 Abrahamse and Battjes. ‘De optimale stad’: 95-108.
23 Kok. Culturele ondernemers. (diss): 24-34. Kok writes that some artists in Holland in the seventeenth century presented a work of art to the city administration and got money in return. This differs from pre-arranged commissions by the government and make it harder to understand what role the government had. Carasso.
Stedentrots in kaart. (diss.): 2-3. Carasso investigates twelve ‘city portraits’ (including some maps) which have
certainly been commissioned by the city councils of cities in Holland.
24 Ufer. ‘Imagining Social Change’ in: De Waard (ed.). Imagining Global Amsterdam: 27-44. Ufer writes about the identity of Amsterdam as a city that was very conscious of its position in the world. Wilson. ‘Venice, Print, and the Early’: 42. Wilson describes how key elements of a city’s identity were visualized and circulated through maps of the city. He explains that the depiction of the city functioned as an icon.
textual elements such as street names and a key or the title of a map usually complement the image and steer its interpretation. What such representation comprehends is not easily delineated and it forms a topic of debate among scholars. Distinctive interpretations come from art historians and specialists on historic cartography. Their (conflicting) views will be discussed throughout this thesis, but especially in chapter two.25
People who possessed these maps could have had them for various reasons and the maps could express different forms of “ascribed representation”. It is highly interesting to know who would have seen a map of Amsterdam as a representation of something. It could be the commissioner of the product, a person who was part of the city council, or inhabitants and people who felt somehow a connection between the map and themselves.26 Scholars also endlessly discussed whether these city maps were a representation of art of science, however, we will find out that a satisfying answer lies in an approach that transcends this dualist thinking.
The map as product or messenger of propagandistic information is yet another level of representation. Bakker and Schmitz in particular try to explain the profiles and maps of Amsterdam as propagandistic material that boosted the city’s self-image as a fast rising, peaceful metropolis in times of the Eighty Years War. This image was spread through international trade in cartographic material, books – especially town atlases – and through gifts to diplomats and to foreign kings and noblemen.27
The ways in which the maps were representing the city will be discussed more thoroughly in the third chapter of this thesis. By comparing and relating the maps of Amsterdam to the textual genre of town descriptions, more is revealed about the map as a medium of representation.28 What was the relation between text and image in the town descriptions and other texts which incorporated maps as illustrations. Can they be compared with town atlases which also included descriptive texts, but present the images as main objects?29 Moreover, maps that celebrate Amsterdam as a prosperous 25 Alpers. The Art of Describing. Alpers has caused major discussion with her 1983 publication on the
descriptive character of seventeenth century Dutch art. According to Alpers this suits the great production of cartographical material in the Netherlands in the same period. Although the study tries to involve both art history and historic cartography, the latter is used to explain developments and features of Dutch painting. This unbalanced point of view has remained in later studies that deal with similar topics: Casey. Representing Place. Gehring. ‘Painted Topographies’. In: Gehring and Weibel (ed.). Mapping Spaces: 22-93. Heijbroek and
Schapelhouman (ed.). Kunst in kaart. For further theoretical understanding see: Krygier. ‘Cartography as an Art’. Rees. ‘Historical Links’. Woodward: ‘Cartography and the Renaissance’. In: Woodward (ed.). Cartography in the
European. 11-24. Hameleers. ‘Placing Maps of Towns’. In: Koeman (ed.). 13th International Conference: 24-27.
26 Hameleers. ‘Representativiteit en functionaliteit’: 47-48. Koeman. Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 135. Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 24. Carasso. Stedentrots in kaart. (diss.): 2-3.
27 Bakker and Schmitz (ed.). Het aanzien van Amsterdam: 7, 20, 87, 110-111, 229-231. Bakker. ‘Venetië van het noorden’. In. Roever, de (ed.). Amsterdam en Venetië: 13-15. Taverne. ‘Het getekende kaartbeeld’: 123, 128. 28 Haitsma Mulier, ‘De zeventiende-eeuwse stadsbeschrijvingen´: 106-115. See for more information on the traditional structure of these descriptions: Haitsma Mulier. ‘De eerste Hollandse’: 97-111. Verbaan. Woonplaats
van de faam. (diss.).
29 Nuti. ‘The Perspective Plan’: 105. De La Fontaine Verwey. ‘The Historic Description’. 22-51. Deys (et al.).
Guicciardini Illustratus. Braun and Hogenberg produced town atlases between 1572-1618. Joan Blaeu published
his two volume town atlas of the Netherlands in 1649. Many editions of Guicciardini’s historic description of the Low Countries followed after 1567 and they contain an increasing number of images of towns, to such an extent that they were almost a town atlas. Peeters. ‘Het stadsbeeld verwoord’. In: Bakker (ed.). Stad in kaart: 39-52. Although Peeters has tried, he has not been able to really connect the literature that celebrates cities since antiquity and the relatively modern explosion in the production of city profiles, bird’s-eye views and maps. His study exemplifies the division between research on textual and research on visual representations of the city. Carasso. Stedentrots in kaart. (diss.): 2-3. Carasso criticizes Peeters for not really comparing literary and visual representations and Carasso comes up with discussing the city portraits as imitations of ancient odes on the
centre of world trade are in accordance with a play by Vos (1662)30, a painting by Berchem (1663)31 and the city hall (finished in 1667)32. The decoration programme of the Visscher map in which the wealthy virgin of Amsterdam receives products from all over the world, is similar to both the décor in Vos’ play, the gods who surround the allegory of Amsterdam on Berchem’s painting and the scene on the rear pediment of the city hall. What can these other forms of city representation tell us about the particular fashion in which maps represented the city? If this imagery recurs in several media, how could this be explained and was similar iconography present in city maps dating before the Visscher map of 1664?
In addition, the maps of Amsterdam can be related to contemporary profiles of the city, maps of the Republic, and maps of other European cities. Moreover, Hameleers explains that the maps of Amsterdam are part of a wider European trend in depicting the cities.33
The peculiar periodization from 1538 to 1664 is based on the years of publications of maps. As said, the first map of Amsterdam appeared in 1538, starting here is evident. To end with the publication of Visscher’s composed wall map in 1664 is justified since Amsterdam’s zenith in economic, political and cultural respect lies in the decades in the middle of the seventeenth century.34 The city hall was built between 1648 and 1665 and in the years 1660-1662 the design of the south-eastern part of the canal belt was determined.35 After the stagnation that befell Amsterdam in the second half of the
seventeenth century, the city would not be extended for two hundred years.
Moreover, the wall map of Visscher is one of the top publications concerning the
representation of the city. Under its decorated title we see six maps which show the city’s growth from 1342 to 1662, eight topographical images of churches, the exchange and the city hall, and a description of the city in Latin, Dutch and French.36 This type of publication, the so-called
“kaertfiguratief”, was not entirely new, however, the opulence and early date of this publication is exceptional.37
To end with this 1664 publication is justified in one more respect. After the completion of the canal belt, and the maps that reported these latest urban developments, new maps in the late seventeenth and eighteenth century did not differ that much from the Visscher map.38 The great publishing houses began to concentrate on copying existing maps and publishing more editions instead of creating new city maps.39 This also generally accounts to other types of cartographical publications in Amsterdam from the late seventeenth century onwards.40
city, but then visually expressed. Though, this seems not to do justice to the particularities of city portraits themselves as he only explains them as a variation of a literary tradition.
30 Vos. Vergrooting van Amsterdam.
31 Middelkoop. ‘Stedenmaagd als bouwmeester’: 19-30. Berchem’s painting Allegory on the expansion of
Amsterdam (c. 1663).
32 Vlaardingerbroek. Het paleis van de Republiek: 11. 33 Hameleers. Gedetailleerde kaarten: 226-229.
34 Van ’t Hoff. Grote stadspanorama’s: 84-86. Amsterdam has functioned as the production centre of high quality city views (especially profiles) of European cities. A well functioning network of cartographers/artists, engravers, publishers and suppliers of all sorts was present in Amsterdam.
35 Abrahamse. De grote uitleg: 145-148.
36 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 100-101.
37 Schmitz. ‘Daniël Stalpaert E. A.’. In: Bakker and Schmitz (ed.). Het aanzien van Amsterdam: 150-151. These types of maps are a truly Dutch innovation and a specialty of Amsterdam publishers.
38 Cosgrove. ‘Mapping New Worlds’: 65-69. 39 Hofman. Historische plattegronden: 3.
This leaves the period between 1538 and 1664 in which numerous maps of Amsterdam were published.41 By approaching these maps with questions about their representational meaning in this tremendously dynamic period of 126 years, the changing image of the city becomes crucial.
Therefore, the many copies and new editions of existing maps will not be included in this research. To look closer at the (often subtle) alterations of new editions is for similar reasons highly interesting, but it in itself is a whole new study.42 Furthermore, since the public is of great importance if one deals with representational images, manuscript maps or maps which were used as an instrument in city planning or land sales are not of my concern. The highly interesting bird’s-eye view by Van den Wijngaerde (1557-1561) and the city plan by Van Deventer (1558-1561) were made on behalf of the Spanish king and were not publicly displayed.43 In contrast, the painting by Anthonisz. was
commissioned by the city council as a gift to the Spanish king, yet it was displayed at the city hall.44 After the painting was damaged by a fire in 1652, Micker made a copy of it but with an amazing touch to it; he added the shades of clouds hanging over the city.45
This means that only innovative maps, with a renewed image of the city will be discussed. By these criteria the following ten maps are selected: Cornelis Anthonisz. (1538), Cornelis Anthonisz. (1544), Pieter Bast (1597), Johannes Isacus Pontanus (1611), Anonymous (1612), Cornelisz. Swart (1623), Balthasar Florisz. van Berckenrode (1624), Jan Christiaenz. Micker (1652), Daniël Stalpaert (1662), and Nicolaes Visscher (1664).46
It is remarkable that in the various publications on these maps of Amsterdam – some monographs47 and a renewed cartobibliography48 – their representational meaning is only marginally discussed, and that a series of maps is not systematically analysed. Bakker and Schmitz form an exception. They have an interesting perspective on the maps as propaganda. However, they lack convincing argumentation that the objects must be evaluated as such.49 Propaganda is one of the possible capacities of a map 41 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 9-10, 24-107. Hameleers has selected his cartobibliography on the criterion that the map is not a copy of an earlier map. However, this is often difficult to tell and hard to discern as all cartographers would have used existing maps in creating new ones. For the period 1538-1664, Hameleers selected 46 maps and multiple editions.
42 In this research the major changes to the image of the city over a long term period are studied. Numerous copies, several imitations of Anthonisz.’s map, maps which are similar to that of Swart (1623) – including Wachter (1624) – and the publication of Danckerts that followed Stalpaert/Visscher, are for this reason not included in this thesis.
43 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 34-37.
44 Knevel. ‘Bird’s-eye View’. In: Van Hasselt and Bleyerveld (ed.). Bird’s-eye View: 9. 45 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 81-82.
46 Ibidem: catalogue numbers: 1, 2, 9, 15, 16, 20 , 25, 34, 41 and 45-46.
47 Burger. ‘Amsterdam in het einde’: 1-102. On Pieter Bast’s map (1597). D’Ailly. ‘Balthasar Florisz.’: 103-130. On Van Berckenrode’s map (1625). D’Ailly. ‘Een tot heden onbekend’: 67-78. On Van den Wijngaerde’s bird’s-eye view. Dubiez. Cornelis van Anthoniszoon. Keyes. Pieter Bast. Niël. ‘De perspectivische ruimteweergave’: 107-113. On the painting by Anthonisz. De Smet. ‘De plaats van Jacob’: 461-482. On Jacob van Deventer.
48 After D’Ailly had published the first cartobibliography on maps of Amsterdam in 1934, Hameleers made his pioneering work up-to-date in: Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam. In this strict overview Hameleers has left no room for a consequent analysis of the maps as a means of representation.
49 Bakker and Schmitz (ed.). Het aanzien van Amsterdam: 6-10. According to the authors, both the canal belt and city portraits (including maps) are luxurious and rich, more than was “strictly” needed. This raises the question what the role of the “self-portraits” has been in the promotion of Amsterdam in a time that it had to compete with other (established) European cities. I do not share the author’s assumptions, nor do I think that because the maps were beautifully made, they primarily served as city propaganda. Other reasons for production are not granted a closer look by the authors, while their statements about propaganda are not supported by argumentation.
which is representing the city, but it does not exclude that the map represented Amsterdam in other ways at the same time.
Another privation is a satisfying analysis of the maps of Amsterdam in relation to the developments in the cartography and the depiction of cities in the fifteenth, sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. As part of an introduction, it is often said that European cities were growing centres of economic, cultural, military and administrative power, and that this is reflected in the growing number of visualizations of cities. Also popular is the idea that cartography developed in pace with new discoveries in science, land surveying and navigation.50 However, the production of images of cities exploded in a relatively short period and this cannot be explained by these simplistic relations. And indeed, scholars who have studied this phenomenon are in a constant debate about what were the most important innovations in depicting cities,51 where these took place,52 and what the effects were in a broader cultural perspective.
A final recurring problem in the literature on the cartography of cities is its regarded position in-between the fields of art and cartography. This has resulted in research that is basically divided between art history and historic cartography.53 Although a growing awareness and increasing number of studies counters this artificial division,54 many scholars still have a perspective on the material that is based on one of the two disciplines.55 It seems that historical cartographers have been focussing on 50 Most books and articles in my bibliography that are not specifically dedicated to the dynamics in the cartography of cities in the early modern period, have such a general introduction on the topic.
51 Ballon and Friedman. ‘Portraying the City’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 696. Harley. ‘Maps, Knowledge and Power’. In: Cosgrove and Daniels (ed.). Iconography of the Landscape: 278. Frangenberg: ‘Chorographies of Florance’: 41-44. Nuti. ‘The Perspective Plan’: 110-126. Pinto, ‘Origins and Development’: 35-38. Pollak. Military Architecture: XI-XV. Schulz: ‘de’Barbari’s View of Venice’: 430-436. Taverne. ‘Het getekende kaartbeeld’: 123-135. Woodward: ‘Cartography and the Renaissance’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of
Cartography: 11-12.
52 Harvey. The History of Topographical Maps: 60-89. Harvey tends to ascribe all developments in art and cartography to northern Italy. Van den Brink and Werner (ed.). Gesneden en gedrukt: 13-15. Van den Brink and Werner focus strictly on the developments in cartography and the publications of maps in Amsterdam. Cosgrove. ‘Mapping New Worlds’: 65-89. Cosgrove focuses only on Venice. Others try to see the developments in cartography in international perspective (often reduced to Italy, Germany and the Netherlands): Ballon and Friedman. ‘Portraying the City’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography. Casey. Representing Place. Nuti. ‘The Perspective Plan’. Pinto, ‘Origins and Development’. Woodward: ‘Cartography and the Renaissance’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography.
53 Peeters and Fleurbaay: ‘16de en 17de-eeuwse’: 30-41. These art historians have conducted research on city portraits but have excluded maps. These are too abstract according to them. Koeman and Schilder (et al.). ‘Commercial Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1298-1383. The four authors Koeman, Schilder, Van Egmond and Van der Krogt have their roots in historical cartography and write clearly from that perspective. Their research does not include art historical approaches. Hameleers: ‘Afbeeldingen van steden’: 22-32. Hameleer’s goal in the article is to categorize city maps as art or science, both in the sense of a scholarly discipline and as in which aspects of city map production belong to art or science. Frangenberg: ‘Chorographies of Florance’: 55. According to Frangenberg, a bird’s-eye view belongs to art, and a city plan to cartography and science. This is a popular view – based on the distinctions by Ptolemy, see chapter two – that is for instance supported by Schulz in his article ‘de’Barbari’s View of Venice’.
54 Alpers. The Art of Describing. Casey. Representing Place. Gehring. ‘Painted Topographies’. In: Gehring and Weibel (ed.). Mapping Spaces: 22-93. Rees. ‘Historical Links’. Krygier. ‘Cartography as an Art’. Harley. ‘”The Myth of the Great Divide”’. Harley. ‘Maps, Knowledge and Power’. In: Cosgrove and Daniels (ed.). Iconography of the
Landscape: 277-303.
55 Rees. ‘Historical Links’: 60-67. Rees tries to find historical links between cartography and art and stresses that ‘[u]ntil science claimed cartography, mapmaking and landscape painting were kindred activities, often
performed by the same hand’. (page 60). Remarkable enough, by stressing aspects of art and cartography in mapmaking, Rees emphasizes the idea that there are two disciplines involved instead of one activity in which both elements are fused. Alpers, Gehring & Weibel, Casey and Van den Brink & Werner have tried to explain the
the objects themselves, analysing the type of image and exploring the production history, while art historians have laid their focus on the artist/cartographer and the way the image represents
something – in line with the way a painting is seen as a form of representation. Throughout this thesis these perspectives will complement each other, though I must say that the will to categorize maps of cities – such a wonderful and genuine cultural product56 – as being art or science, a bird’s-eye view or a city plan, has blurred many scholars in approaching the material as something that could be studied under its own conditions. This thesis is an attempt to do just that.
It has become clear in the text above that discussing maps of Amsterdam as a means of representing the city is a complex matter. It touches several aspects which cannot all be dealt with to an extend that they deserve as topics on their own.57 Such a component is the history of Amsterdam and cartography before and during the years that the ten city maps were made. However, the following chapter will shed light on this interesting period to better understand under which circumstances the maps were made and of what the maps were a representation. Amsterdam as a growing centre of naval trade, capital, political power and the publication of books and cartographical material, is key to the attraction of people who were involved in making maps of the city. Moreover, to know the history of the fast growing city and its urban extensions will help to understand more of what the maps depict, also what they emphasize or deny. Chapter one is therefore primarily a chapter of introduction and contextualization.
The above mentioned peculiarities in the history of city maps and the literature that deals with them will form the topic of the second chapter. The visualization of cities entered a new age in the Renaissance with a much larger number of depictions and a growing appreciation and
development of techniques for the visual characterization of the city.58 Rediscovery of the ancient text of Ptolemy seems to have influenced the way the city was portrayed throughout Europe, however, people have made various depictions of the city which combine the distinctions made by Ptolemy. In a historiographical overview on the literature about the developments in portraying the city during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both the different ideas and the different approaches by scholars come to the fore. In this way, chapter two will help to understand the images of Amsterdam in a perspective of a broader European production of city maps and enables a better understanding of the specific ways in which cities were portrayed.
In the third chapter, the ten maps of Amsterdam take centre stage. By discussing the maps as a means of representation, the various forms of representation can be discussed. A study of key features of each map reveal the particular image of Amsterdam that they wanted to present. The maps bind the information of the previous chapters as they are the product of a tradition in
visualizing cities, and relate to Amsterdam as a prosperous city in which, and of which the maps were made. Each case study seeks to elaborate, in a greater or lesser extent the various aspects of
representation.
link between art and cartography, but they cannot let go their art historical perspective on the material. Nuti. ‘The Mapped Views’: 545-570. Nuti discusses the work by Joris Hoefnagel who made numerous city views for the Braun and Hogenberg town atlases. Although the views linger towards landscape painting, Nuti argues that the will to map is evident. By this argumentation she counters Alpers approach, it is almost a reversed way of looking at the relation between art and cartography, compared to Alpers.
56 Koeman. Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 1. Koeman notes that in the sixteenth century the cartographer and artist have met. In woodcuts and copperplate engravings the map was deliberately made appealing. 57 Cosgrove. ‘Mapping New Worlds’: 65-89. Cosgrove clearly struggles to incorporate and relate so much of the context of the mapping culture in Venice within a single text.
In the conclusion, the ten individual maps are approached as an integral set of city
representations which is directly connected to the historic processes in Amsterdam, and is influenced by the different modes of city representation which were developed in the course of several
centuries. The essential characteristics of city maps of Amsterdam as a means of representation and the differences among them that highlight these features, will be discussed. The long unasked question of how the series of city maps performed as bearers of representation will finely be put under scrutiny.
Amsterdam and Cartography
The City in the Centre
In this chapter the crucial developments in and around Amsterdam which influenced the city map production are introduced. The chronicle of the growth of Amsterdam serves as a continuous line that is intersected by developments in trade and navigation, cartography and commercial map production, war and migration, city extensions and a growing appreciation of images as sources of information. It will become clear that all these elements were important for the transformation of the marshland village into a metropolis that formed the centre of cartography in the seventeenth century. The settlement of farmers and fishermen in the swampy lands between Utrecht and Haarlem in the eleventh century was the earliest event in the history of Amsterdam.59 Small residential pockets were located at the river Amstel which connected Amstelland with the IJ and Zuiderzee. As part of the construction of a long dyke between Spaarnedam and Muiden, a dam was built in the Amstel. The dam functioned as the centre for the emerging town with an excellent harbour at the north-side: the Damrak, see image 1.1.60 The growing importance of the settlement is manifested in the granted city charter in 1300 and a monopoly in levying tolls on the popular Hamburg beer for the whole of Holland in 1323. The first contacts were herewith laid between Amsterdam, the Baltic cities and the trades town Antwerp which was the wealthy big brother of Amsterdam.61 Masses of cloth, wine and soap were sold in the Baltic Hanze cities while loads of timber, beer and grain were brought into Amsterdam before it was shipped to other destinations.62
59 Vlaardingerbroek. Het paleis van de Republiek: 15.
60 Knevel. ‘Bird’s-eye View’. In: Van Hasselt and Bleyerveld (ed.). Bird’s-eye View: 11.
61 Vlaardingerbroek. Het paleis van de Republiek: 15. Knevel and Knevel. ‘Grain, Beer and Green Soap’. In: Van Hasselt and Bleyerveld (ed.). Bird’s-eye View: 44-45. Antwerp was Europe’s most dynamic commercial hub in the middle of the sixteenth century and it had a major harbour network that extended into Asia and America. 62 Knevel and Knevel. ‘Grain, Beer and Green Soap’. In: Van Hasselt and Bleyerveld (ed.). Bird’s-eye View: 44-45. Image 1.1. Anthonis van den Wijngaerde. Bird’s-eye view of Amsterdam. 1547-1550. Pen and brown ink, brush in colour, 44 x 117. City Archive Amsterdam, Amsterdam.
Accompanying the growth in trades ware and Amsterdam’s harbour network, the number of
inhabitants grew and the city was gradually extended. At the end of the fifteenth century Amsterdam was a lively city within its recently erected defensive walls. The Dam – heart of the economic and political centre with its harbour, several markets and the town hall – was by then surrounded by four canals, several churches, convents in the eastern part and, especially in the west, densely packed houses.63 During the sixteenth century the city became ever more populous because it grew as an economic centre. Trade with the Baltic formed the foundation of Amsterdam’s wealth and
shipbuilding was one of the city’s major industries.64 This can be seen in the bird’s-eye view that Anthonis van den Wijngaerde made between 1557 and 1561 as part of a series of two hundred views of cities ruled by the Spanish king. In the area outside the eastern city wall, ships were built and freights loaded and unloaded.65
Since maritime trade was the backbone of Amsterdam’s trade network, sources of navigation on the north-west European seas were of key interest for the merchants and skippers. Overcoming the hazards such as the sandbanks was a serious challenge that was met by the experience of steersmen. In addition to an oral transmission of knowledge came the so-called leeskaarten,
paskaarten and the kaartboek. Together with the growth of the Dutch merchant fleet and maritime
trade covering the area from the Canery Islands to England and Latvia, the numbers of publications on routes and navigation in Amsterdam started to rise. From 1532 onwards, leeskaarten – textual navigators which sometimes included drawings of the coastal profile – were produced of which a few were in print.66 Cornelis Anthonisz. made the first known paskaart – a graphical representation in the form of a map – the Caerte van Oostlant (Baltic sea) dating 1544.67 This is a rare and exceptionally early map which together with his bird’s-eye view of Amsterdam points at Anthonisz.’s position as a precursor of sixteenth century Dutch cartography.68
63 Abrahamse. De grote uitleg: 12.
64 Davids. Zeewezen en wetenschap: 43.
65 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 34.
66 Keuning. ‘XVIth Century Cartography’: 57. Dubiez. Cornelis Anthoniszoon: 22. Cornelis Anthonisz. was probably the first to include a profile drawing in the leeskaart the ‘Caerte van die Oostersche See’ (which is a book) in 1544. The booklet explained the way the chart Caerte van Oostlant could be used for navigation.
67 Dubiez. Cornelis Anthoniszoon: 22. Van den Brink and Werner. Gesneden en gedrukt: 11-12.
68 Van den Brink and Werner. Gesneden en gedrukt: 12. Keuning. ‘XVIth Century Cartography’: 37. Although Anthonisz.’s chart is known as the first paskaart, Keuning stresses that we do not know to what extent
A very helpful collection of Leeskaarten and paskaarten (the kaartboek) was published by Waghenaer. His Spiegel der Zeevaerdt (1584/1585) started off a new tradition in pilot-guides.69 Several editions in Dutch, French, German and Latin followed while similar publications combining sea charts and textual navigation followed quickly. One was commissioned by the city council of Amsterdam in order to provide a good sailor’s guide along the North Sea coasts: Haeyen’s:
Amstelredamsche Zee-Caerten (1585). He is also thougth to be the creator of the anonymous map in
a Rutter of 1586, see image 1.2. 70
Despite of these nautical publications in Amsterdam, the centre of naval cartography and navigation lay in Portugal and Spain during the fifteenth and better part of the sixteenth century.
Anthonisz. borrowed from his predecessors.
69 Keuning. ‘XVIth Century Cartography’: 57. Waghenaer also published another “sea-atlas” in 1592: Thresoor
der Zeevaert.
70 Schilder. ‘A Dutch Manuscript Rutter’: 61-62. Keuning. ‘XVIth Century Cartography’: 59. Haeyen worked on the Amstelredamsche Zee-Caerten for four years, receiving a yearly pension and a sum of Fl. 300. It was printed at Christoffel Plantin at Leiden and several editions followed in 1591, 1594, 1605 and 1613.
New navigational tools were developed there and information on the routes to Africa, Asia and America was in their hands.71 The Dutch based their knowledge on the Portuguese,72 but as a
consequence of the Eighty Years War with Spain (1568-1648) – also called the Dutch Revolt which led to the independence of the Dutch Republic in 1648 – the harbour of Lisbon was closed for Dutch ships in 1585.73 This led to the search for the routes to the East and West Indies by Dutch sailors themselves.74 The African west coast, Brazil, Guyana and north America became new trading grounds for the Dutch. Three expeditions (1594, 1595 and 1596) were undertaken to find the deemed
northern route to Asia and although they all failed, many geographers, merchants and sailors were engaged in finding this northern passage during the 1590s.75 Among them were the famous Willem Barentsz. and Henry Hudson, but the principal figure who pushed for new expeditions was the Fleming Petrus Plancius. Migrated to Amsterdam, the geographer and cartographer Plancius was the scientific adviser of the expeditions that set the Dutch sailing to all corners of the world.76 The route
71 Davids. Zeewezen en wetenschap: 65-66. Turnbull. ‘Cartography and Science’: 7-8.
72 Keuning. ‘XVIth Century Cartography’: 59. Especially Jan Huygen van Linschoten who had travelled on Portuguese ships and spent time on Goa, shared Portuguese nautical knowledge in his book Itinerario, voyage
ofte schipvaert naer Oost ofte Portugaels Indien 1579-1592 (1596).
73 Davids. Zeewezen en wetenschap: 43.
74 Van der Krogt. ‘Commercial Cartography’: 80-82. 75 Davids. Zeewezen en wetenschap: 44-45.
76 Koeman and Schilder (et al.). ‘Commercial Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1309.
Image. 1.2. Anonymous. The channels to the
Zuiderzee, 1586. Etching and engraving, size
unknown. Collection Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. (detail). Schilder opted that the anonymous print and booklet are made by Aelbert Heayen.
Image 1.3. Anonymous. Siege plan for Groningen. 1594. Medium unknown. 38.1 x 29.9. Collection British Library, London.
Both maps employ a combination of perspectives in order to provide the best information.
to the East Indies via Cape the Good Hope was long, however proven successful when the first fleet of De Houtman and Keyser returned in 1597. Three years later Oliver Noort was the first Dutchman to sail around the world and closer to home, but of a greater economic importance was the growth of Dutch freight shipping in western Europe and the new direct contacts which were made in the Mediterranean.77
Through this increase in the volume of cargo, the number of ships and the oceans that were sailed since the late 1580s, the demand for books of navigation was high. Willem Barentsz. made a sea-atlas for the Mediterranean in 1595 and the companies that sailed to the East and West Indies (VOC (1602) and WIC (1621)) set up their own offices which collected and updated sea charts and navigation instruments for their precious trade routes.78 The need for reliable navigation instruments also stimulated scientific research and led to the development of competitions with high prices organized by the States General and States of Holland in 1600 and 1601.79 Therefore, it is evident that the increasing production of books, atlases, globes and (world) maps by commercially minded publishers in Amsterdam around 1600 stems from higher needs of books on navigation due to increased sea trade which was in particular concentrated in Amsterdam.80 The earliest products of commercial cartography in Amsterdam had its origin in nautical publications.81
Before we delve deeper into the particularities of Amsterdam as centre of cartography in the early seventeenth century, it is important to have a look at the function of maps and some broader developments in cartography in the Low Countries in the sixteenth century.
Cartography as an instrument for nautical navigation has already been discussed, but since the end of the fifteenth century, maps were used for military purposes in the Netherlands as well. Maps of cities and regions helped strategists to plan sieges or campaigns and they were also
employed to illustrate or celebrate battles.82 Moreover, the increasing complexity of city fortifications
77 Davids. Zeewezen en wetenschap: 45. 78 Schilder. ‘Organization and Evolution’: 61-78.
79 Davids. Zeewezen en wetenschap: 69-72, 80-96, 285. At the time, navigation relied on determining latitudes (by using astronomy) since there was no instrument to find longitudes. Gemma Frisius and others wrote about finding latitudes in the early decades of the sixteenth century but a practical solution was not found. A few years before the turn of the century, several applications for patents by the States General for instruments to determine longitudes conjured with the undertaken journeys for searching routes to Asia by the Dutch. According to Davids, the scientific competitions organized by the States General and States of Holland and the government’s role in the organization of the VOC, show the relation between the voyages of exploration and organization of scientific affairs concerning instruments of navigation. New navigation techniques were explained and discussed in zeemansgidsen (pilot guides) and several inventions were checked by commissions containing surveyors, mathematicians and scientists such as Simon Stevin, Willibrord Snellius, Jan Pietersz. Dou, Samuel Marlois and Jan Hendrick Jarichs van der Ley, creating a scientific debate in which theory was tested through experiments. Maps on board of ships were also improved to serve as more reliable navigation instruments. Petrus Plancius was involved in, and experimented with different types of maps, such as humped maps and globes.
80 Van der Krogt. ‘Commercial Cartography’: 80-84. Koeman and Schilder (et al.). ‘Commercial Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1305. Donkersloot-de Vrij. Drie generaties Blaeu: 30, 57. Willem Jansz. Blaeu was a prominent publisher who combined his commercial publishing business with his interests in science. By improving the quality of his publications in accuracy and decoration, he successfully published a travel journey with new routes, a premiere publication in which the determination of longitudes on the oceans was explained to sailors and he made instruments for navigation. Moreover, he, his son and grandson would exclusively be employed as mapmakers for the VOC.
81 Van der Krogt. ‘Commercial Cartography’: 82-83. For further reading: Schilder and Van Egmond. ‘Maritime Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1384-1432.
demanded plans as a working tool for architects, land surveyors and military advisers.83 Maps were applied in similar fashion as drafts for sizable building projects and the extension of cities.84 Due to their practical nature these maps have often not survived history. However, maps which were made to present a design – such as Daniël Stalpaert’s map (image 3.20) showing the planned extension of Amsterdam which was presented to the city council – or maps which celebrate city enlargements – like the map of Pieter Bast (1597) which emphasizes Amsterdam’s new harbour – are more likely to have been preserved since they were specifically made to be put on display.85 Maps were also called upon in judicial processes concerning conflicts over land or responsibilities for maintaining dykes, locks and waterways. The map as a tool in environmental planning was especially common in the northern provinces due to their geography.86
In contrast to the cartographic material which was used to maintain polders, maps that represented the responsible organisations (waterschappen) were made with increasing sophistication and decorative elements such as the coats of arms of eminent families.87 The urge to have cities, regions and countries represented in maps was apparent in the whole of Europe in the sixteenth century. According to Koeman, the map of Brabant by Jacob van Deventer (made between 1530-1536) was like the maps of the waterschappen in line with the European drift of cities, provinces, and countries to represent themselves in maps.88 The Spanish king ruling over the Low Countries ordered the production of city views, city plans and maps of provinces by the artist/cartographer Van den Wijngaerde and surveyor/cartographer Van Deventer and Christiaan Sgrooten. The military purpose of the accurate and uniform collection of city plans and regional maps has been emphasized by several authors89, but the fact that these maps formed atlases for the king’s collection in Madrid points at their symbolic meaning as a link between ruling over the territory and possessing the maps that represent it.90 Yet another usage of cartographic material was the incorporation of maps and
82 Koeman. Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 72-74. Harvey. The history of Topographical: 160-162. Gehring. ‘Painted Topographies’. In: Gehring and Weibel (ed.). Mapping Spaces: 22-93.
83 See for more on this topic: Van den Heuvel, “Papiere Bolwercken”. Pollak. Military Architecture.
84 Abrahamse. De grote uitleg: 107, 124, 159. Maps which were used for designing, realizing and the auction of new plots of several urban extensions and smaller urban rearrangements are incorporated in Abrahamse’s book. One could think of the large-scale map of the planned Stadstimmertuin or the series of maps which covered the construction of the city hall in the middle of the seventeenth century. Vlaardingerbroek. Paleis van
de Republiek: 26-28. Pinto. ‘Origins and Development’: 40-41.
85 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 42-44, 90. Their size and decoration reveal that these maps were not made to be used as instruments in designing the city extensions. Hofman. Historische plattegronden: 3-4, 6, 16-17.
86 Koeman, Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 79-80. Cosgrove. ‘Mapping New Worlds’: 67. Hydrographical cartography was also applied in Venice in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The lagoon there needed a similar approach of careful environmental planning as in the Netherlands.
87 Hameleers. ‘Representativiteit en functionaliteit’: 33-56. 88 Koeman. Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 80-81.
89 Koeman, Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 53. Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 35. Hofman. Historische
plattegronden: 25-26. De Smet. ‘De plaats van Jacob’: 473.
90 Kagan. ‘Phillip II and the Art’: 133. Kagan concludes that ‘[t]he king intended this artist’s [Van den
Wijngaerde] cityscapes to serve as emblems of Habsburg power, symbols of the vast empire under his personal control.’ (page 133). Benedict, ‘The Visual Reporting’. In: Benedict. Graphic History: 78-82. ‘The intense concern with topographic and reportorial accuracy displayed in these works [maps of battles] can be related to the tendency for Renaissance rulers to assemble increasingly accurate maps and topographical views and to use them in palace decoration to figure their far-flung possessions.’ (page 79). Harley. ‘Maps, Knowledge and Power’. In: Cosgrove and Daniels (ed.). Iconography of the Landscape: 277-303. Koeman. Geschiedenis van de
town views in for example the historic description of the Low Countries by Ludovico Guicciardini.91 This Florentine trade agent living in Antwerp wrote a comprehensive history for an increasing number of people who had interest in such a book. Twenty-five editions were published between 1567 and 1662.92
Antwerp was elaborately praised by Guicciardini. The city was the economic heavy weight and the centre for the publication of books and cartographic material in the sixteenth century Low Countries.93 Louvain functioned as the intellectual centre and there was intensive contact between scholars and publishers of both towns. Frequent contacts between the northern Dutch towns and the flourishing cities in Flanders underscore the political and linguistic unity that the seventeen provinces formed until the war started.94
Several important men significantly influenced the developments in cartography. Jacob van Deventer (c. 1505-1575) was enlisted at the university of Louvain and studied medicine and applied geometry. Van Deventer mapped several provinces between 1530-1545 and supplied some maps for judicial processes, but from 1540 onwards he worked as “keizerlijk” and “koninklijk” geographer (land surveyor)95 for Philip II and this led to his greatest achievement: producing 214 plans of cities in the Low Countries. Their uniform and accurate character reveal Van Deventer’s great surveying skill and list him among the greatest cartographers of the century.96
Gemma Frisius (1508-1555) was a Frisian mathematician at Louvain (registered in 1526) who wrote about triangulation as an instrument to survey a vast area.97 However, it is unclear whether Van Deventer has applied or even developed the triangulation for his map of Brabant (1530-1536) before or in accordance with Frisius, sure is that Van Deventer and Gerard Mercator (1512-1594) were among the first to use the new surveying technique in practice.98 Mercator studied philosophy and mathematics by Frisius at Louvain since 1530 and he is known as a great innovator in cartography.99 He stood at the base of commercial cartography in the Netherlands and made an influential system of sea charts with increasing latitude intervals toward the poles: the Mercator projection.100
91 Guicciardini gave his book the title: Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi, altrimenti detti Germania inferiore. 92 Hameleers. Kaarten van Amsterdam: 37.
93 Koeman and Schilder (et al.). ‘Commercial Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1306. ‘Apart from local cartography in the Northern Provinces, there was no cartographic tradition until about 1580.’ (page 1306). Keuning. ‘XVIth Century Cartography’: 41-43. Keuning makes the exceptional observation that there were centres of cartography in the Netherlands before 1580. During the second half of the sixteenth century the centre of cartography shifted to Antwerp according to Keuning. ‘This meant, for cartography, that the leadership passed to the southern Netherlands, and only after the downfall of Antwerp in 1585 did it pass again to the northern provinces.’ (page 43). It makes one think what should be called a “centre of cartography”. 94 Koeman, Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 2-3.
95 Ibidem: 52. Land surveyors and cartographers were not separate professions in the sixteenth century. Often a land surveyor would draw the map himself. The woodcuts and copper engravings were often executed by other professionals, but Gerard Mercator and Floris Balthasarsz. van Berckenrode combined both professions. 96 Ibidem: 52-54.
97 De Smet. ‘De plaats van Jacob’: 463. Frisius published Libellus de locorum describendorum ratione in 1533-1534.
98 Ibidem: 462-464. Koeman. Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 45-46. 99 Koeman. Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 46, 56-57.
100 Koeman and Schilder (et al.). ‘Commercial Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1298-1299.
Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) had great commercial success with his world atlas the Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum (1570). It included 53 maps and till 1612 there appeared another 32 editions in various
languages.101 This first-ever world atlas was followed by the first town atlas by Braun and Hogenberg in Cologne: the Civitates Orbis Terrearum in 1572.102 Its immediate success resulted in five more parts with a collection of in total some 363 town views.103 The publication of books which included town views had already started with Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia (1544) and Guicciardini’s historic description of the Netherlands (1567). The latter was initially published by Willem Silvius in Antwerp,
101 Koeman. Geschiedenis van de kartografie: 58.
102 Keuning. ‘The “Civitates” of Braun’: 41. Van der Krogt. ‘Wereldsteden uit de zestiende eeuw’: 148. Keuning has written in 1963 that the town atlas followed the success of the world atlas by Ortelius and that it is not clear who took the initiative for the town atlas – it could either be Braun, Simon van den Neuvel or Ortelius – though it probably was Frans Hogenberg. Van der Krogt states in his more recent article that indeed Hogenberg took the initiative, but he did this even before the Ortelius atlas was published. Both systematically ordered books were worked on at the same time according to Van der Krogt. Notably, Hogenberg worked as engraver on the world atlas of Ortelius.
103 Koeman and Schilder (et al.). ‘Commercial Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1334.
Image. 1.4. Jacob van Deventer.
Amsterdam. 1558- c. 1561. Pen and
ink, brush in colour, 43.3 x 55.5. Collection Noord Hollands Archief, Haarlem. (detail)
but as the Dutch Revolt broke out one year later, the religious-political unrest and Spanish troops devastated normal life.104 Silvius became printer for the newly erected university of Leiden in 1577 and some years later, his direct competitor in Antwerp, the famous Christophe Plantin, published a second edition in 1581. De la Fontaine Verwey writes that Plantin and the Catholic Guicciardini were both proponents of the unified seventeen provinces. The editions of Plantin pictured the Netherlands as a political unit without mentioning William of Orange nor the war that would eventually divide the provinces.105 Like Silvius, Plantin left Antwerp for Leiden in 1583 to work at the university. Unlike many others106, Plantin returned to Antwerp two years later and published a final Antwerp edition of Guicciardini in 1588. Both died one year later.
Guicciardini’s book was a great hit and in the fast growing Amsterdam, a newly settled bookbinder Cornelis Claesz., printed the first northern edition of Guicciardini in 1609 on the occasion of the Twelve Years’ Truce. In 1612 Willem Jansz. Blaeu would publish the first edition in Dutch and instead of Antwerp, Amsterdam is celebrated as the centre of world trade through illustrations and text.107
The shift of Guicciardini’s publication from Antwerp to Amsterdam and the migration of Silvius and Plantin to Leiden reveals a distinctive transfer of economic and cultural life from the southern to the northern Netherlands. This development was for a great deal caused by war and led to the heyday of northern cities, Amsterdam in particular. What had happened and how did it affect Amsterdam and the production of cartography?
The war which started after the revolt of cities and provinces against their Spanish ruler lasted eighty years and affected many Flemish cities in a negative way. Both sides focussed on conquering cites through sieges which had a disastrous impact on the lives of inhabitants.108 The religious intend of the conflict meant for many Flemish Protestants that fleeing was the only option wherever the Spanish prevailed.109 Antwerp, Europe’s third largest city and commercial hub for international trade, suffered tremendously. The ‘Spanish Fury’ – a three day rage by Spanish soldiers – in 1576 and a long siege in 1584-1585 left the city ruined.110 With its population dropped by more 104 Rasterhof. The Fabric of Creativity. (diss.): 44. The Spanish Fury in 1576 also affected publishers. Christophe Plantin losses are estimated at f 10.000. Furthermore, the outrage by soldiers essentially ended Antwerp’s golden age as economic centre and centre of book production.
105 De la Fontaine Verwey. Guicciardini’s Description’: 37-38.
106 Rasterhof. The Fabric of Creativity. (diss.): 45. ‘It is estimated that over 150 booksellers and printers relocated from the Southern to the Northern Netherlands in the period 1570-1619.’ (page 45).
107 De la Fontaine Verwey. ‘Guicciardini’s Description’: 40-51. Visscher’s 1609 publication included 18 more illustrations than Plantin’s editions. Visscher included views of the townhalls of Middelburg, Veere and Flushing which formed a counterpart to the print of the townhall of Antwerp. The Dutch edition of Blaeu in 1612 omitted the view of the town hall of Veere and in the Latin edition in 1613, a print of the town hall of
Middelburg was left out and four plates with views of Amsterdam were included (two of which bare the initials of Claes Jansz. Visscher). According to De la Fontaine Verwey this is ‘clear evidence that Amsterdam, and not the cities of Zealand as had first been expected, had taken on Antwerp’s position as centre of world trade.’ (page 45). Joan Blaeu would publish a renewed description of the Netherlands in the form of a town atlas in 1649. His Toonneel der Steden had two volumes – like Willem Jansz. Blaeu’s latest Guicciardini editions had two volumes – one with the cities of the northern provinces (Van de Vereenighde Nederlanden) and one containing the cities of the southern provinces (Van ‘s Konings Nederlanden). This underscored the political division between the northern and southern Netherlands that was manifested in the Peace of Münster (1648). 108 Pircher. ‘The Landscape’. In: Gehring and Weibel (ed.). Mapping Spaces: 409.
109 Rasterhof. The Fabric of Creativity. (diss.): 45. Protestants were often offered to leave within a few years with their belongings within several years, or they had to convert to Catholicism.
110 Rasterhof. The Fabric of Creativity. (diss.): 44. The Spanish Fury in 1576 also affected publishers. Christophe Plantin losses are estimated at f 10.000. Furthermore, the outrage by soldiers essentially ended Antwerp’s
than half to 40.000 and its lifeline, the Scheldt river closed off by northern rebels, inhabitants who were able – mainly the well to do – took refuge in Germany, England and the northern provinces.111
Amsterdam and Leiden attracted roughly 40 per cent of booksellers who migrated from the Southern Netherlands to the Dutch Republic between 1570 and 1600. Leiden, with its university founded in 1574, developed into a publishing centre for academic books, The Hague grew into a political centre and produced cheap opinionating and official state publications, while Amsterdam attracted a more varied book production due to its position as commercial hub and information centre. The flow of international information was a crucial local resource for both publishers and merchants.112
One of the most important publishers was Cornelis Claesz. (1551-1609). The Fleming came to Amsterdam in 1578 and settled as the city’s second bookseller.113 He worked with important
engravers (Van Doetecum and Van Langren families), published the works of Plancius and worked in corporation with, among others, Jodocus Hondius, Pieter van den Keere and Lucas Jansz. Waghenaer. The then recently discovered coasts of Asia and Africa and the routes taken by Dutch sailors around the world (De Houtman, Barentsz. and Noort) were published by Claesz. in nicely decorated maps.114 His nautical publications had more illustrations and used less jargon to serve the middle class layman who was interested in the Dutch exploits. Cleasz. thus became the founder of Amsterdam’s
commercial cartography and by his death in 1609, dozens of colleagues and competitors surrounded Claesz. along the Damrak and Kalverstraat.115 Among them were publishers originally from Alkmaar and Arnhem (Willem Jansz. Blaeu and Johannes Janssonius) and several from the southern
provinces.116
So, war and migration meant that Antwerp lost its dominant position in the Netherlands and Amsterdam became its successor. Immigrants formed a crucial part in the development of
Amsterdam as a new centre of cartography as they brought their skills and contacts with their businesses to the existing Amsterdam market for nautical cartography.117 Moreover, many Flemings with other professions came to Amsterdam as well, leading to an explosive growth of inhabitants and wealth. The war with Spain also affected sea trade as the Dutch were forced to set up their own trade routes and founded the VOC and WIC. The war stimulated cartography in particular in the form of news maps which reported recent events of the war to the (illiterate) civilians. Especially battle and siege plans enjoyed great popularity and some of them, for example a map of Leiden under siege (1574), stood model for the siege of Leiden depicted in the town atlas by Braun and Hogenberg.118 golden age as economic centre and centre of book production.
111 Ibidem: 42-43, 50. Many migrants came eventually to Amsterdam after they tried making a living in towns such as Middelburg, Frankfurt or London.
112 Ibidem: 49-50, 53-55. Leiden dominated in the number of titles that were published. Between 1600 and 1609 1234 (of which 430 were academic texts) were published at Leiden, compared to 369 titles in Amsterdam, however, Rasterhof states that Leiden would “soon” be overtaken by Amsterdam.
113 Ibidem: 41. The only other bookseller at the time in Amsterdam was Harmen Jansz. Muller.
114 Koeman and Schilder (et al.). ‘Commercial Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1309-1311.
115Rasterhof. The Fabric of Creativity. (diss.): 41. Schilder. Monumenta Cartographica VII: 9. 116 Rasterhof. The Fabric of Creativity. (diss.): 55-56.
117 Ibidem: 43-44. Rasterhof discusses how scholars disagree on the nature of the contribution of immigrants to the Republic’s economy. The traditional explanation in the formulation of an “external shock” is countered by historians who stress the distinct social and economic characteristics of the Dutch provinces. Van den Brink and Werner (ed.). Gesneden en gedrukt: 44.
118 Koeman and Schilder (et al.). ‘Commercial Cartography’. In: Woodward (ed.). The History of Cartography: 1304-1305.
