There was one further edition in 1602 before the plates were acquired by Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612) in 1604, probably bought at Leiden at the auction of 

’s library then in the possession of his grandson, 

 II. Hondius built a successful publishing career from his own Mercator-Hondius atlas, as ‘Gerardi Mercatoris 

 Sive Cosmographicae’ in 1606, as here. 

’s first atlas, ‘Tabulae Geographicae Cl. Ptolomei’ (1578), are some of the most beautiful that Mercator ever produced, and the world map is no exception, surrounded as it is by an elaborate strapwork border with twelve named windheads.

The map includes a massive Taprobana (modern day Sri Lanka) in the Indian Ocean. The Indian subcontinent is severely truncated and the Indian Ocean appears to be land locked. Only the northern part of Africa is shown with the Nile originating in the twin lakes south of the Equator in the Mountains of the Moon.

 (1512–1593) was born in Rupelmonde in East Flanders. He studied in Louvain under Gemma Frisius, the Dutch astronomer and mathematician, and began his career as a cartographer in that city where the excellence of his work eventually won him the patronage of Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V. In order to escape religious persecution, he moved to Duisburg in 1552. There he continued to produce maps, globes, and instruments, including his most celebrated work: a world map on eighteen sheets drawn to his new projection known as the 

. This was one of the great intellectual inventions of sixteenth-century cartography, solving the ancient problem of how to map the spherical earth onto a flat sheet of paper, while preserving the bearings of the compass as straight lines. 

In later life, he devoted himself to the preparation of his three-volume collection of maps to which, for the first time, the word ‘atlas’ was applied. The word was chosen, he wrote, "to honor the Titan, 

, King of Mauritania, a learned philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer". Mercator's sons and grandsons were all cartographers and made their contributions in various ways to the great atlas. His son Rumold Mercator, in particular, was responsible for the complete edition of 1595.

This extremely rare celestial globe is composed of twelve hand-coloured engraved gores, depicting Ptolemy's forty-eight major constellations and all twelve zodiac signs. Crafted after Jodocus Hondius’s celebrated celestial globe of 1601, it includes a table of magnitudes categorizing the stars' brightness into ‘Primae’, ‘Secundae’, ‘Tertiae’, ‘Quartae’, ‘Quintae’, ‘Sextae’, and ‘Nebulosae’.

Superb example with contemporary hand-colour of one of 

’s most beautiful maps engraved by Mercator himself for his first atlas.



fruitwood feet, the globe measures 21 cm in diameter and are comprised of 12 handcoloured engraved gores. The celestial globe depicts the major constellations and the twelve of the 

, illustrated in detail after Jodocus Hondius famed celestial globe of 1601. Each meridian is made of wood, one side of which is covered with a paper printed with 4 arches of 90° and crowned by a clock made of cardboard partially covered with a paper printed I-XII twice.

Mercator’s Ptolemaic Map of the World