Henricus Hondius

Henricus Hondius (1597-1651) was a Dutch engraver and cartographer and a member of a prominent family of mapmakers and publishers in Amsterdam. His father, Jodocus Hondius, an engraver and geographer, had purchased part of the estate after Gerhard Mercator. Henricus was instrumental in the first Hondius edition of Mercator’s 1595 atlas (1606). When the father died in 1612, the family business was passed on to him and his brother, Jodocus the Younger. They ran the firm together for nine more years until Henricus decided to venture out independently.

Family ties remained close, and in the early 1630s, Henricus joined forces with his brother-in-law (husband to his sister), the highly skilled engraver Johannes Jansonnius. Together, they recreate and expand the Mercator atlas to such an extent that its contents since have come to be classified as Mercator-Hondius-Janssonius maps. Henricus Hondius died in Amsterdam in 1651.