Joannes de Laet

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Joannes de Laet (1581 – 1649) was a Flemish geographer and director of the Dutch West India Company. Philip Burden called his History of the New World, "...arguably the finest description of the Americas published in the seventeenth century" and "...one of the foundation maps of Canada". de Laet was the first to print maps with the names Manhattan, New Amsterdam (now New York) and Massachusetts.

1 Life
2 Works
- 2.1 History of the New World
- 2.2 Other works
3 External links

[edit] Life

Joannes de Laet was born in Antwerp in 1581. He matriculated as a student of Philosophy at the University of Leiden in 1597. He spent some time in England studying Theology from 1603 to 1607. He died in Leiden in 1649.

[edit] Works

[edit] History of the New World

His History of the New World was published in several editions by Bonaventure & Abraham Elseviers, Leiden. The first edition was published in Dutch in 1625 as Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, uit veelerhande Schriften ende Aen-teekeningen van verscheyden Natien; a second edition also in Dutch, came out in 1630 as Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien door Joannes de Laet. Tweede druk: In ontallycke placesen verbetert, vermeerdert, met eenige nieuwe caerten, beelden van verscheijden dieren ende planten verciert. [1]

A Latin edition from 1633 was entitled Novus Orbis seu descriptionis Indiae Occidentalis Libri XVIII authore Joanne de Laet Antverp. Novis talulis geographicis et variis animantium, Plantarum Fructuumque iconibus illustrata, and a 1640 French edition was L'Histoire du Nouveau Monde ou description des Indes Occidentales, contenant dix-huict livres, enrichi de nouvelles tables geographiqiues & figures des animaux, plantes & fruicts. [2]

Each successive edition had significantly updated maps.

[edit] Other works

The Empire of the Great Mogul, translated by J.S. Hoyland with S.N. Bannerjee. Taraporevela, Bombay, 1928. Reissued Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1975, ISBN 81-7069-041-2.