Plan ancien de la ville d’Orleans – Jansson éditeur – original antique engraving

Johannes Jansson

Johannes Janssonius, plus connu sous le nom de Jan Jansson, est né à Arnhem, où son père était libraire et éditeur (Jan Janszoon the Elder).
En 1612, il épousa la fille du cartographe et éditeur Jodocus Hondius, puis s’installa à Amsterdam en tant qu’éditeur de livres. En 1616, il publie ses premières cartes de France et d’Italie et produit à partir de ce moment un très grand nombre de cartes, tout à fait comparables à celles de la famille Blaeu, car très proches en quantité et en qualité.
De 1630 à 1638 environ, il s’associa à son beau-frère, Henricus Hondius, et publia de nouvelles éditions des atlas Mercator / Hondius auxquels il fut associé. À la mort de Henricus, il reprit l’entreprise, élargissant encore l’atlas jusqu’à ce qu’il publie finalement un Atlas Major en 11 volumes à une échelle similaire à celle de l’Atlas Major de Blaeu.
En général, les cartes de Jansson ressemblent beaucoup à celles de Blaeu et, en fait, elles en ont souvent été copiées, mais elles ont tendance à être plus flamboyantes et, selon certains, plus décoratives. Après la mort de Jansson, ses héritiers publièrent un certain nombre de cartes dans un Atlas Contractus en 1666 et plus tard encore, de nombreuses plaques de ses cartes britanniques furent acquises par Pieter Schenk et Gerard Valck, qui les publièrent à nouveau en 1683 sous forme de cartes séparées.

Johannes Janssonius, more commonly known to us as Jan Jansson, was born in Arnhem where his father was a bookseller and publisher (Jan Janszoon the Elder). In 1612 he married the daughter of the cartographer and publisher Jodocus Hondius, and then set up in business in Amsterdam as a book publisher. In 1616 he published his first maps of France and Italy and from then onwards he produced a very large number of maps, perhaps not quite rivalling those of the Blaeu family but running a very close second in quantity and quality. From about 1630 to 1638 he was in partnership with his brother-in-law, Henricus Hondius, issuing further editions of the Mercator/Hondius atlases to which his name was added. On the death of Henricus he took over the business, expanding the atlas still further, until eventually he published an 11-volume Atlas Major on a scale similar to Blaeu’s Atlas Major.
The first full edition of Jansson’s English County Maps was published in 1646 but some years earlier he issued a number of British maps in the Mercator/Hondius/Jansson series of atlases (1636-44); the maps were printed from newly engraved plates and are different from the later 1646 issue and are now rarely seen (see Appendix B for further details). In general appearance Jansson’s maps are very similar to those of Blaeu and, in fact, were often copied from them, but they tend to be more flamboyant and, some think, more decorative.
After Jansson’s death his heirs published a number of maps in an Atlas Contractus in 1666 and later still many of the plates of his British maps were acquired by Pieter Schenk and Gerard Valck, who published them again in 1683 as separate maps.