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This small copper-engraved chart of “Java Maior,” printed about 1702 for the first French edition of Isaak Commelin’s Recueil des Voyages… (translated by René-Augustin de Renneville), distills a century of Dutch reconnaissance in the East Indies into a single, book-sized image.
The map illustrates the dicoveries from Cornelis de Houtman’s pioneering voyage of 1595-96, showing places such as Bantam, Iacatra (Jakarta), Cheribon, Iasum, Surabaya, while a tiny church symbol inland marks Mataram, capital of the Javanese sultanate then rising to power. In the periphery, the Sunda Strait, tip of Sumatra and the southern shores of Borneo are shown, alongwith Bali, Lombok, and scattering islets of the Moluccas.
The island’s interior is intentionally blank, a reminder that European knowledge still hugged the shoreline; Dutch merchants cared most about the coastal markets where pepper and cloves could be loaded. Within Renneville’s Recueil, the map introduces the section that recounts how Dutch fleets abandoned an Arctic “North-East Passage” and, following Houtman around the Cape of Good Hope, opened the profitable southern route to Asia. articularly the dominance of Amsterdam mapmakers in the early 17th century.
The Portuguese, Dutch, and English maritime powers were vying for control over the spice trade, and Java was at the heart of these struggles. The Dutch East India Company (VOC) established its base in Batavia (Jakarta) in 1619. The presence of European settlements marked a turning point in Java’s political and economic history, foreshadowing centuries of colonial rule.
![Amboina ad viumu descripta [on verso:] [Banda, etc.]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/93272.jpg)
