Jodocus Hondius, l’un des graveurs les plus célèbres de son temps, est connu pour son travail en association avec de nombreux cartographes et éditeurs importants à la fin du XVIe et du début du XVIIe siècle. Né en Flandre, il grandit à Gand. Il fut apprenti dans une entreprise de fabrication d’instruments scientifiques, globes et gravure de cartes. En 1584, pour échapper aux troubles religieux qui balayaient les Pays-Bas, il s’enfuit à Londres où il passa quelques années avant de s’installer à Amsterdam vers 1593. De l’époque londonienne, il conservera les contacts qu’il avait noué avec les plus grands scientifiques et géographes du jour, auteurs de The Mariner’s Mirrour, l’édition anglaise de Waghenaer’s Sea Atlas. Nul ne doute que son exil temporaire à Londres lui fut utile, lui valant une réputation internationale, car ce n’est pas un hasard que John Speed célèbre cartographe anglais, choisit Hondius pour graver les planches des cartes du Théâtre de l’Empire de la Grande-Britaine entre 1605 et 1610. En 1604, Hondius acheta les planches de l’Atlas Mercator qui, malgré son excellence, n’avaient pas réussi à concurrencer la demande persistante des cartes d’Ortelius. Après la mort de Jodocus Hondius l’Ancien en 1612, ses travaux de cartographie et miniature, ont été confiés à sa veuve et à ses fils, Jodocus II et Henricus, puis à Jan Jansson à Amsterdam. Au total, à partir de 1606, près de 50 éditions comportant un nombre croissant de cartes avec des textes dans les principales langues européennes ont été imprimées.
Jodocus Hondius, one of the most notable engravers of his time, is known for his work in association with many of the cartographers and publishers prominent at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century.
A native of Flanders, he grew up in Ghent, apprenticed as an instrument and globe maker and map engraver. In 1584, to escape the religious troubles sweeping the Low Countries at that time, he fled to London where he spent some years before finally settling in Amsterdam about 1593. In the London period he came into contact with the leading scientists and geographers of the day and engraved maps in The Mariner’s Mirrour, the English edition of Waghenaer’s Sea Atlas, as well as others with Pieter van den Keere, his brother-in-law. No doubt his temporary exile in London stood him in good stead, earning him an international reputation, for it could have been no accident that Speed chose Hondius to engrave the plates for the maps in The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine in the years between 1605 and 1610.
In 1604 Hondius bought the plates of Mercator’s Atlas which, in spite of its excellence, had not competed successfully with the continuing demand for the Ortelius Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. To meet this competition Hondius added about 40 maps to Mercator’s original number and from 1 6o6 published enlarged editions in many languages, still under Mercator’s name but with his own name as publisher. These atlases have become known as the Mercator/Hondius series. The following year the maps were reengraved in miniature form and issued as a pocket Atlas Minor. After the death of Jodocus Hondius the Elder in 1612, work on the two atlases, folio and miniature was carried on by his widow and sons, Jodocus II and Henricus, and eventually in conjunction with Jan Jansson in Amsterdam. In all, from 1606 onwards, nearly 50 editions with increasing numbers of maps with texts in the main European languages were printed. Summaries of these issues are given under the entry for Gerard Mercator.