Since the final
edition in 1621 in Amsterdam of the Jodocus Hondius' Atlas
Minor of 1607, there was no smaller-format atlas
available for the Dutch market. Johannes Janssonius decided to
meet this need by producing the Atlas Minor Gerardi
Mercatoris in 1628. This map of Africa in its
first state was included in Janssonius' atlas.
Obvious effort went into the development of the map of Africa.
The geography in the Janssonius map borrows some aspects from
Jodocus Hondius' 1606 folio map of Africa and Hondius'
reduced-size map of 1607, though Janssonius seems to rely more
on Willem Blaeu's folio map of 1617 and his wall map of 1608.
There are numerous additional placenames throughout this map,
when compared to the slightly larger 1607 Hondius map. The
configuration of the interior river systems closely follows
Blaeu's wall map of 1608.
Some time after Janssonius' death in 1664, the
copperplates were acquired by Pieter van der Aa. Van der
Aa completely reworked the title cartouche, inserted a compass
rose, and erased the name of the original engraver, Abraham Goos.
The map of Africa was included Van der Aa's extremely rare
atlas. Part One of the atlas was called
Nouveau Petit Atlas and Parts Two through Nine were
called the L'Atlas soulagé de son gros &
pesant fardeau. The atlas was published in Leiden in
c.1714. In this edition, the Africa map has no text on the
verso. The map of Africa appeared both in Part One and Part Nine
of the atlas.
Reference: Betz # 64.2. Betz, Richard L.,
with Penelope W. Betz. The Mapping of Africa: A Cartobibliography
of Printed Maps of the African Continent to 1700. 't
Goy-Houten, The Netherlands: HES & De Graaf
Publishers, 2007.