Janssonius, Joannes (1588-1664).

8 volumes in 4, folio (480 x 310mm.), [4]; [8]; [4]; [8]; [4]; [8]; [4]; [8]pp., illustration: 4 engraved additional title-pages, 8 letterpress titles on overslips within engraved armorial borders, 484 engraved plates, mostly double-page after Abraham Hogenberg, Joannes Blaeu and others, plate 81 (Tortona) repeated, fine dark impressions, binding: contemporary calf, lacking plate 66 (Utinum), some occasional spotting, binding rubbed

cf. Koeman II, Ja 12-17

Joannes Janssonius’s initiative in the field of atlas production often superseded that of the Blaeus. The townbooks, published in 1657, containing 500 plates of cities and towns all over the world, appeared at a time when Joannes and Cornelis Blaeu were still planning their “cities of the world”.  But contrary to what the Blaeus had produced and were to produce (townbooks of the Netherlands in 1649, townbooks of Italy in 1663), Janssonius’s work was not original throughout. In 1653 Joannes Janssonius had acquired the plates of the Civitates orbis terrarum from Abraham Hogenberg. The bulk was incorporated into the townbooks. For many plates of the cities of the Netherlands, Janssonius ordered copper-plates, newly engraved after the originals by Blaeu.

The set collates as follows:
Volumes 1 & 2: Theatrum urbium celebriorum totius Belgii sive Germaniae Inferioris/... Posterior, 113 maps;
Volumes 3 & 4: Theatrum exhibens illustriores principes Germaniae Superioris civitates. Pars Prior/... Pars Posterior, 159 maps;
Volumes 5 & 7: Theatrum celebriorum urbium Italiae, aliarumque in insulis maris Mediterranei/Theatrum exhibens celebriores Galliae et Helvetiae urbes, 101 maps (plate 81 Tortona repeated, lacking plate 66 Utinum);
Volumes 6 & 8: Theatrum praecipuarum urbium positarum ad septentrionalem Europae plagam/Theatrum in quo visuntur illustriores Hispaniae urbes, aliaeque ad orientem & austrum civitates celebriores, 111 maps.