Nova et accurata Iaponiae Terrae Esonis ac Insularum adjacentium…

Title

Nova et accurata Iaponiae Terrae Esonis ac Insularum adjacentium…

Description

map of Japan and Korea.

ca. 1650

Artist

Janssonius (1588-1664)

Johannes Janssonius (Jansson)( 1588- 1664) Amsterdam, 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 maps in 1616 of France and Italy. In 1623 Janssonius owned a bookstore in Frankfurt am Main, later also in Danzig, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Königsberg, Geneva and Lyon. In the 1630s he formed a partnership with his brother in law Henricus Hondius, and together they published atlases as Mercator/Hondius/Janssonius. Under the leadership of Janssonius the Hondius Atlas was steadily enlarged. Renamed Atlas Novus, it had three volumes in 1638, one fully dedicated to Italy. 1646 a fourth volume came out with ""English County Maps"", a year after a similar issue by Willem Blaeu. Janssonius' maps are similar to those of Blaeu, and he is often accused of copying from his rival, but many of his maps predate those of Blaeu and/or covered different regions. 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"" (Townatlas), of the waterworld (Atlas Maritimus in 33 maps), and of the Ancient World (60 maps). The eleventh volume was the Atlas of the Heavens by Andreas Cellarius. Editions were printed in Dutch, Latin, French, and a few times in German.

Historical Description

In the 16th century, Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries first reached Japan and initiated direct commercial and cultural exchanges between Japan and the West. Oda Nobunaga used European technology and firearms to conquer many other daimyos. His power consolidation began in the so-called Azuchi Momoyama period. After Nobunaga's death in 1582, his successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi unified the nation in the early 1590s and launched two unsuccessful invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1597. He was appointed Shogun by Emperor Go-Yōzei in 1603 and founded the Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo (modern Tokyo). The shogunate enacted measures such as the Buk-Shohatto code of conduct to control the autonomous daimyōs and in 1639 the isolationist sakoku ("closed country") policy, which spanned two and a half centuries of weak political unity known as the Edo period (1603-1868) . During the isolation of Japan in the Edo period, entry and exit for Japanese and foreigners were prohibited. With the exception of limited exchanges with China and the Netherlands, who were the only Europeans allowed to stay in Japan on the artificial island of Dejima off Nagasaki in 1639, there was hardly any contact with other states. The Tokugawa family retained control of the other daimyo for over 250 years. This period was marked by great prosperity for the Japanese people. The population grew steadily. Today's Tokyo grew into the largest metropolitan area in the world during this time. The economic growth of modern Japan began during this period, leading to road and water transport routes, as well as financial instruments such as futures, banks, and insurance for the Osaka rice brokers. The study of western sciences (Rangaku) continued through contact with the Dutch enclave in Nagasaki. The Edo period led to Kokugaku ("National Studies"), the study of Japan by the Japanese. In 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry and the "Black Ships" of the United States Navy forced the opening of Japan to the outside world with the Kanagawa Convention. Later similar treaties with other Western countries brought economic and political crises with them. The cabinet took over Western political, judicial and military institutions, organized the privy council, introduced the Meiji constitution and assembled the Reichstag.