LEO BELGICUS

LEO BELGICUS

LEO Belgicus In 1611, published in Amsterdam, Dutch cartographer, printer and publisher Hessel Gerritsz (1581-1632) map titled LEO Belgicus NOVA XVII Provinciarum Germaniae inferioris blackboard. The map is very interesting cartographic personification. Displays the Netherlands in the form of a walking lion and is oriented to the east. Author and placed the border in Belgium and the Netherlands in the head of the image, the mouth of the masses in the dorsal and Ijsselské sea with the West Frisian Islands in the back and tail. Hessel map decorated naval motifs - Portolan (north arrow), ships and sea monsters. The idea came to personify the Netherlands as the first Austrian typographer Michael von Aitzing (1530-1598) already in 1583. The idea then successfully developed in 1611 by the Amsterdam publisher Claes Janszoon Visscher - Piscator (1587-1652), who gave figural version of the map and in 1617 the Dutch cartographer Petrus Kaerius (1571-1646), the lion turned 180 degrees.