Mapmaker:
Joannes Jansson (1588-1664)
Janssonius was born in Arnhem, the son of Jan Janszoon the Elder, a publisher and bookseller. In 1612 he married Elisabeth de Hondt, the daughter of Jodocus Hondius. He produced his first map in 1616 and by 1623 he owned a bookstore in Frankfurt am Main, later also in Danzig, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Königsberg, Geneva and Lyon. Elisabeth Hondius died in 1627 and he remarried Elisabeth Carlier in 1629. In the 1630s he formed a partnership with his brother in law Henricus Hondius.
By 1660, at which point the atlas bore the appropriate name “Atlas Major”, there were 11 volumes, containing the work of about a hundred credited authors and engravers. It included a description of “most of the cities of the world” (Town atlas), Maritime (Atlas Maritimus in 33 maps), and of those of the Ancient World (60 maps). The eleventh volume was the Atlas of the Heavens by Andreas Cellarius.