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Petrus Plancius (1552 - May 15, 1622) was a Dutch astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He studied theology in Germany and England. At the age of 24 he became a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. Because of fear for religious prosecution by the Inquisition he fled from Brussels to Amsterdam after the city fell in Spanish hands in 1585. There he became interested in navigation and cartography and, being fortunate enough to have access to nautical charts recently brought from Portugal, he was soon recognized as an expert on the shipping routes to India. He was one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company for which he drew over 100 maps. Orbis Terrarum, created in 1594, holds the distinction of being the first world map to use a style of richly decorated border that would dominate world maps for decades to come. The elaborate borders were inspired by drawings in the works of Theodore de Bry published a few years earlier and established a pattern of cartographical decoration that lasted over a century. The map also has great importance geographically, particularly in the mapping of the Arctic and the Far East. The map contains a marvelous attempt at a North-West Passage, and Plancius himself instigated the three voyages of Willem Barents (1594-1597) into the area. He used this map to give cartographic encouragement to the Dutch crews by turning Novaya Zemlya into an island with open sea between it and the Arctic. A sprinkling of English names in the Canadian Arctic appear as a result of Frobisher and Davis s explorations in search of the passage in 1576-1587. The map is also a landmark in the mapping of Asia and Japan. Plancius was one of the first Europeans able to penetrate the wall of secrecy surrounding the manuscript portolan maps produced by Spain & Portugal.
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