Jan Jansson (1588-1664)

Johannes Jansonius, more familiarly known as Jan Jansson was born in Arnhem, the son of a bookseller and publisher. In 1612 he married the daughter of the cartographer Jodocus Hondius and began work as a book publisher in Amsterdam. In 1616 he produced his first maps of France and Italy and continued from then onwards publishing a large number of maps which were almost comparable to Blaeu in quality.

During the 1630s he went into partnership with his brother-in-law Henricus Hondius and published more editions of the Mercator/Hondius atlases with the addition of the name Jansson. He later published an 11 volume Atlas Major - a project similar in ambition to Blaeu's Atlas Major.

In 1646 the first full edition of Jansson's English County Maps was published. He had some years before produced a number of British maps as part of the Mercator / Hondius / Jansson series of atlases (1636-1644). These were printed from newly engraved plates and differ from the later 1646 examples and are now very rare.

The similarity between Jansson's maps and Blaeu's is due to the fact that Jansson often copied from the Blaeus