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Nice example of this early state of Langenes / Bertius map of the Arabian Peninsula, which first appeared in the 1598 edition of Langenes's Caert-Thresoor, published in Middelburg.
Langenes's map was first issued in his Caert-Thresoor and later re-published by Bertius in his Tabularum Geographicarum, beginning in 1600, with the total number of appearances of this map running to no less than 12 appearances between 1598 and 1650, in the two works by Langenes and Bertius .
Petrus Bertius was a Flemish historian, theologian, geographer, and cartographer. Known in Dutch as Peter de Bert, Bertius was born in Beveren. His father was a Protestant preacher and his family fled to London around 1568. The young Bertius only returned to the Low Countries in 1577, to attend the University of Leiden. A bright pupil, Bertius worked as a tutor and was named subregent of the Leiden Statencollege in 1593. He ascended to the position of regent in 1606, upon the death of the former regent, who was also Bertius’ father-in-law. However, due to his radical religious views, he eventually lost his teaching position and was forbidden from offering private lessons.
His brothers-in-law were Jodocus Hondius and Pieter van den Keere, who were both prominent cartographers. Bertius began his own cartographic publishing in 1600 when he released a Latin edition of Barent Langenes’ miniature atlas Caert Thresoor (1598). He published another miniature atlas that first appeared in 1616.
By 1618, Bertius was named cosmographer to Louis XIII. He converted to Catholicism and took up a position as professor of rhetoric at the Collège de Boncourt (University of Paris). In 1622, Louis XIII created a chart of mathematics specifically for Bertius and named him his royal historian. He died in Paris in 1629.
Barent Langenes was a Dutch publisher and engraver at the turn of the seventeenth century. He worked in Middleburg, Netherlands. He is best known for his publication of Petrus Bertius’ Caert-Thresoor in 1598. This pocket world atlas was small, printed in the vernacular, and was more affordable than folio-sized competitors, allowing more people to own and use atlases. The atlas was a commercial success and was printed twelve times in Dutch, French, Latin, and German editions between 1598 and 1650, although Langenes was most likely only involved in the first two Dutch editions (1598 and 1599).
