Biscay from the first English Edition of the 'Atlas Minor'

HONDIUS, Jodocus.

Biscaia et Legio.
London: Michael Sparke and Samuel Cartwright, 1635. Coloured. 135 x 180mm, set in English letterpress.

A small format map of Biscay, marking Bilbao, Santander and Burgos. The map is decorated with strapwork cartouches for the title and the scale, and a seamonster.
The map was published in the 'Historia mundi, or, Mercator's Atlas. Containing his Cosmographical Description of the Fabricke and Figure of the World', in which all the maps were printed perpendicular to the text.
The 'Atlas Minor', the pocket version of the Mercator atlas, was first published in 1607, with several editions up to 1621. Soon afterwards the printing plates were sold to a London publisher, and were used to illustrate 'Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes' by Samuel Purchas in 1625. A decade later this 'Historia mundi' was the first English edition of the 'Atlas Minor', with text translated into English by Wye Saltonstall.


Stock ID : 22457