Laurens van der Hem (1621–1678), was a Dutch lawyer and a collector of maps and landscape prints. He is known today for commissioning his meticulously thorough personal version of the Atlas Maior, itself a major work of cartography and art published by his contemporary and friend Joan Blaeu.
Herengracht 115, former address of Laurens van der Hem, in 1890 unrecognizably rebuilt after a design by Hendrik Petrus Berlage
Elmina Castle on the coast of modern-day Ghana
Fort Zeelandia, Dutch Formosa (modern-day Taiwan)
The Atlas Maior is the final version of Joan Blaeu's atlas, published in Amsterdam between 1662 and 1672, in Latin, French, Dutch, German and Spanish, containing 594 maps and around 3,000 pages of text. It was the largest and most expensive book published in the seventeenth century. Earlier, much smaller versions, titled Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas Novus, were published from 1634 onwards. Like Abraham Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570), the Atlas Maior is widely considered a masterpiece of the Golden Age of Dutch/Netherlandish cartography.
Atlas Blaeu - Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken
Front page of the Atlas novus, forerunner of the Atlas maior, 1645
Joan & Willem Blaeu Atlas in 11 volumes with white leather binding with gold leaf and special chest to hold it in, next to a portrait of Willem Blaeu, copy in the University of Amsterdam Special Collections
