Gerard & Cornelis de Jode

Gerard de Jode (1511–91) was a Dutch printer and mapmaker born in Nijmegen who worked from Antwerp, then the center of European cartographic production. Accepted into the Guild of St. Luke in 1547, he quickly earned a reputation as a skilled mapmaker — though his business acumen never quite matched his cartographic talent. His greatest achievement was the two-volume Speculum Orbis Terrarum (1578), conceived as a rival to Ortelius’ enormously popular Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Despite De Jode’s reputation, the atlas sold poorly — a commercial failure whose consequence is that barely a dozen copies survive today, making it one of the rarest atlases in existence.

Undeterred, De Jode began work on a revised and expanded atlas with his son Cornelis (1568–1600). The result, Speculum Orbis Terrae (1593), retained Gerard’s original maps while incorporating significant revisions and new maps compiled by Cornelis. Gerard died two years before publication. The atlas fared no better commercially, and after Cornelis’ death the plates were sold to J. B. Vrients — who also owned the Ortelius plates — effectively ensuring the work would never be reprinted. Where Ortelius ran to dozens of editions, the De Jode atlas exists only in its two original editions of 1578 and 1593.

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