Pieter van den Keere (Latin: Peter Kaerius 1571 – c.1646) was a Dutch engraver, publisher and globe maker.
He was born in Ghent, and in 1584 moved with his family for religious reasons to London. There he received training as an engraver from Jodocus Hondius, his brother-in-law. In 1593 both Keere and Hondius settled at Amsterdam.
After 1630, there are few details of his life. The dating of some plates for John Speed's Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World of 1646 indicates that he was still alive then.
From his time in England there is a map of Ireland from 1592, Hyberniae novissima descriptio. It was published by Hondius and served as a model for later editions of the Theatrum of Abraham Ortelius. He also contributed to John Norden's Speculum Britanniae of 1593.
For Willem Barents Keere engraved plates for Caertboeck Vande Middel-landsche Zee. He also worked with Petrus Bertius, Cornelis Claesz, Petrus Plancius, the House of Visscher, and Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer. In 1595 there appeared a large wall map of Europe in 10 sheets, Nova totius Europae descriptio.
From 1603, Keere began on large urban panoramas, including Utrecht, Cologne, Amsterdam and Paris. Around 1604 he was preparing the publication of the atlas Germania Inferior id est Provincuarum XVII. This first appeared in 1617, with a foreword by Petrus Montanus.
A series of 44 plates for the British Isles, from about 1599, took a long time to publish. They were based on Christopher Saxton, Ortelius, and Giovanni Battista Boazio, respectively for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. They appeared in 1617 in a Latin edition of the Britannia of William Camden, by Willem Blaeu. Later these plates came to William Humble, who issued them (with some modification and expansion) in 1627 as a miniature version of the atlas of John Speed. Thereby van den Keere's works came by the name "Miniature Speeds".[1]