JANNE TUNTURI Cartographer’s experience of time in the Mercator-Hondius Atlas (1606, 1613) his article analyses the articulations of tempor­ The Mercator-Hondius Atlas is the work of two ality in the Mercator­Hondius Atlas. Firstly, cartographers who belonged to different generations; Tthe atlas reflects the sense of the past as the Gerardus Mercator (1512–94) was fifty years older cartog raphers had to assess the information included than Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612). Moreover, the in ancient texts in relation to modern testimonies. Sec­ scale of the atlases differed considerably, as Mercator’s ondly, Hondius had to take into account the worldview edition mapped only European countries (with not- provided by the explorers in the fifteenth and sixteenth able omissions such as Spain), while Hondius’ edi- centuries. Hence the experience of time articulated tion was universal. Mercator drew maps for his atlas in the Mercator­Hondius Atlas reflected not only the in the 1560s and the 1570s. The unfinished Atlas sive cartog raphers’ ideas of the Dutch cartographic industry cosmo graphicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fab- but also directed the making of the atlas. ricati figura was published posthumously in 1595. In 1606 Hondius utilised the copperplates on Mercator’s maps he had bought together with Cornelis Claesz. The Mercator-Hondius Atlas, published by and added maps, some of his own, to compile an atlas Jodocus Hondius in 1606, summarises the early-sev- that would be convenient and met current standards. enteenth-century Dutch golden age of map-making, (Van der Krogt 1995: 115–16) famous for the skilled cartographers and the atlases During the publication of Mercator’s and Hondius’ it produced. The atlases (bound collections of maps) atlases, European explorers uncovered new lands and reflected the expansive shift in the Dutch thinking civilisations, which challenged religious and scien- during the years of exploration and the establish- tific truths. As Anthony Grafton has shown, earlier ment of commercial networks around the world. The knowledge of the world had been shaken, especially atlas existed at the juncture of intellectual endeavour as a result of the discovery of America. Grafton has and practical necessity. The maps in the atlases had proposed that European knowledge was still reliant to be approximately the same size and they had to on ancient authorities in the late fifteenth century. be printed and drawn in the same style (Koeman et The new discoveries, which brought information on al. 2007: 1318). At the same time, atlases had a close a world that neither Homer nor the Bible had known, connection with scholarship as representations of gradually shattered the status of classical texts – their the known world. Atlases aimed to depict the con- relevance as sources of information diminished, temporary world but their relationship with the past while the impact of the observation of both nature was complex, because the modern cartography was and foreign people increased. Nonetheless, the clas- under the impact of antiquarian scholarship. In addi- sical tradition did not disappear over night, as most tion, atlases adapted information from ancient Greek interpretations of the new worlds were based on it. and Roman scholarship and from early modern anti- (Grafton 1992) quarian studies, and reflected the rapidly changing The golden age of the atlases was a period when European worldview during a time of exploration knowledge of the world was revolutionised. While and religious wars. the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century explor ations 46 Approaching Religion • Vol. 6, No. 1 • May 2016 shattered the sense of the past by questioning the Momigliano (1950), early-modern historical thought authority of classical writers, cartography and other was heavily influenced by antiquarians, who used ways of narrating the expeditions and presenting both textual and material sources, while historians their results made early-modern scholars aware of the were limited to texts. The definition of antiquarian- problems with the use of ancient sources. The Bible ism remains contentious. Recently Peter N. Miller and the Romans did not mention America, nor did has suggested that the discipline could be under- they know about its flora or fauna. When the influ- stood as a study of the ‘entire lived culture of a people ence of the ancient canon gradually vanished, history or a period’, which uses suitable methods available. became a discipline of its own. Even the past had to Interestingly, Miller considers antiquarianism as a be studied by contemporaries, because the earlier spatial approach, which studies the physical surviv- signposts, the classical authors, were not considered als of the past (Miller 2012: 285–315). Both cartog- as reliable any longer. (Schiffmann 2011; Kelley 1998: raphers and antiquarians were fascinated by topog- 156–61) raphy, which involved the study of ‘the examination The late-sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-cen- of the Earth’s surface and its salient physical and cul- tury atlases commented on the ideas of time and tural features’ (Castree et al. 2013). history. They had to acknowledge the changes in the Cartography, when it presented historical topog- worldview that resulted from the journeys of explor- raphy or the remnants of the past, could be regarded ation and from progress in the natural sciences. This as an antiquarian discipline that attempted to visual- article analyses the articulations of temporality in the ise the past in terms of geography, politics and cul- Mercator-Hondius Atlas. Firstly, the atlas reflects the tures (Tolias 2008: 102). Many of the key early-mod- sense of the past as the cartographers had to assess the ern antiquarian studies, such as William Camden’s information included in ancient texts in relation to Britannia, were topographic, as they presented their modern testimonies. Secondly, Hondius had to take subject from region to region. They did not dismiss into account the worldview provided by the ex plorers the past but spatialised it by dividing the presentation in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Hence the into regions. Britannia, like most topographic stud- experience of time articulated in the Mercator- ies, consisted of both maps and texts, thus paving the Hondius Atlas reflected not only the cartographers’ way to both Mercator and Hondius. ideas of the importance of the expeditions but also Mercator, like many of his contemporaries, was directed the making of the atlas. aware of the outdated information that Ptolemy’s How much did this change in historical thought Geographica contained. In Mercator’s plan, the role of influence early-modern cartography? According historical information was noteworthy as the atlas’s to Walter Goffart (2003), there were hardly any five chapters described the creation of the world, real historical maps in the early-modern period, as the description of the heavens, the description of the cartographers concentrated on contemporary the earth, genealogy and the history of nations and geographic al information without any conscious chronology. In addition, Mercator divided geography accounts of the past that differed from the present. into three sections: modern maps, Ptolemaic maps This article claims that cartographers reacted both to and historical maps. The division between the past antiquarian studies and to new knowledge that expe- and present maps and the inclusion of Ptolemaic ditions produced. Often they could balance between maps in a section of their own suggests that Mercator the two sources of information, but sometimes the considered the maps following Ptolemy’s texts to sources were contradictory. be historically important. He intended to continue the tradition while simultaneously modernising it. Unfortunately, Mercator died in 1594, when he had Jodocus Hondius and Petrus Montanus: two learned drawn only the maps of most European regions. His cartographers in the age of antiquarianism son Rumold published the Atlas sive cosmographicae The role of cartography and atlases in the study of meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura a historical thought can be understood in relation to year after his father’s death, in 1595. (Van der Krogt simultaneous and multifaceted approaches to the 1997: 31–3; Keuning 1947: 42–3, Thiele 1995: 22–6) past that competed in seventeenth-century learned Like Mercator, Jodocus Hondius was a learned culture. According to classical analysis of Arnaldo cartographer, who had studied in the University Approaching Religion • Vol. 6, No. 1 • May 2016 47 Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia The first edition of Mercator’s Atlas. of Leiden. Therefore it is not surprising that the woodcuts used by printers made it relatively easy to Mercator-Hondius Atlas is a synthesis of ancient make identical reproductions of the maps, which the carto graphic tradition and its modern modifications. scribes had not succeeded in copying properly (Jacob It united the Ptolemaic cartographic approaches, 2006: 56–7). The standardization of cartography con- which presented the world as regional maps, with tributed to the differentiation between the ancient cultural, geographical and anthropological descrip- and modern maps. Unlike many other publishers, tions from Strabo’s Geographica (Tolias 2012: 21). Mercator did not want to make changes to the maps The combination of cartographic and textual repre- he published in the section of Ptolemaic maps. They sentation was topical, as the works of both Mercator were instead separated from the works of modern and Strabo were rediscovered and studied ardently in cartographers. the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Grafton 2010: Without the invention of printing, the Mercator- 170–3). Mercator and Hondius were fascinated by Hondius Atlas would not exist. Jodocus Hondius, Ptolemy’s cartography: they studied both his theor- who acquired the copper plates for Mercator’s maps ies and later maps that were drawn following them. in 1604, was at that time a notable businessman and Mercator published his own edition of Ptolemy’s a famous engraver and cartographer. He had been maps in 1578, Hondius and his associates in 1605.