Henry Hondius

Henricus Hondius II, Henry Hondius, born in 1597 and died on August 16, 1651, was a Dutch engraver, cartographer, and publisher.

He was born in Amsterdam, the son of the famous cartographer Jodocus Hondius, who had established a cartographic business in the city.
Henry Hondius obtained the original plates of the Mercator world map 1569 and published a version of it in 1606.
In 1621 he opened his own company in his hometown, leaving his father’s business. The first time his name was mentioned in an atlas was in 1623 when he published the fifth edition of the Mercator-Hondius atlas.
After 1628, Henry Hondius joined cartographer Jan Janssonius, and together they continued the work. He died in Amsterdam in 1651.

Together with Mercator, Henry Hondius developed the Mercator projection. In fact, in 1569, Mercator published a globe map with a new projection, emphasizing its usefulness for navigation right from the title: Nova et aucta orbis terrae descriptio ad usum navigantium.

Through the projection introduced by Mercator, a conformal map is obtained that preserves the angles of the globe, ideal for navigation using a compass.
The resulting map is characterized by significant latitude distortion as one moves away from the equator; the geographic poles, projected at an infinite distance, cannot be represented.

Jodocus Hondius, father of Henry Hondius, was a Flemish and Dutch engraver and cartographer. Hondius is best known for his early maps of the New World and Europe, for restoring the reputation of Gerardus Mercator‘s work, and for his portraits of Francis Drake.

One of the leading figures of the Dutch Golden Age of cartography, he helped establish Amsterdam as the center of cartography in Europe in the seventeenth century.

Jodocus Hondius was born in Wakken and grew up in Ghent. In his early years, he established himself as an engraver, instrument maker, and globe maker. In 1587 in London, he married Colette van den Keere, daughter of Hendrik, with whom he had a son who also became a cartographer: Henricus Hondius II.

While in England, Hondius was instrumental in publicizing the work of Francis Drake, who had completed a circumnavigation of the world in the late 1570s.

In particular, in 1589, Hondius produced a now-famous map of New Albion Bay, where Drake briefly established a settlement on the west coast of North America.

Hondius’ map was based on diary accounts and eyewitness reports of the voyage. Hondius is also believed to be the artist of several famous portraits of Drake that are now in the National Portrait Gallery in London.