Gerard de Jode

A cartographer, engraver and prolific publisher of maps and atlases, who lived and worked in Antwerp during the 16th Century. In 1578, after much trouble, Gerard published his atlas, a direct challenge to the autonomy of Abraham Ortelius’s own atlas of the world. Cornelis de Jode (1568–1600), Gerard’s son, was not a cartographer but continued his father’s publishing business and brought out a stunning enlarged edition of his father's atlas, called ‘Speculum Orbis Terrae’ which Gerard had been planning before his death. After Cornelis died, most of the de Jode stock was bought by Jean Baptiste Vrients.