Joannes de Laet

Joannes or Johannes De Laet (Latinized as Ioannes Latius) (1581 in Antwerp – buried 15 December 1649, in Leiden) was a Dutch geographer and director of the Dutch West India Company. Philip Burden called his History of the New World, "...arguably the finest description of the Americas published in the seventeenth century" and "...one of the foundation maps of Canada". De Laet was the first to print maps with the names Manhattan, New Amsterdam (now New York City) and Massachusetts.

Early life and education De Laet was born in Antwerp in 1581. In 1585, when he was about three years old, the city fell to Spanish forces during the Eighty Years' War. His family left Antwerp and settled in Amsterdam in the northern Netherlands. As a director he was involved in the administration of the company during the early decades of Dutch commercial expansion in the Atlantic world.

He also edited Pliny's Historia naturalis and Vitruvius' De architectura, wrote a detailed account of the New World and compiled an (unpublished) Old English-Latin dictionary – to mention just a selection of his forty publications.

Correspondents His correspondents include the English antiquaries William Camden, Sir Henry Spelman, Sir William Boswell, Abraham Wheelock, Sir Simonds D'Ewes, James Usher, Patrick Young, John Morris, and the Danish antiquary Ole Worm.

Death De Laet died in December 1649 in The Hague, aged 68. He was buried in the Pieterskerk, Leiden.

Works

History of the New World Grand Manan and Campobello island as shown on the 1630 map of de Laet. His History of the New World was published in several editions by Bonaventure & Abraham Elseviers, Leiden. The first edition was published in Dutch in 1625 as Nieuwe Wereldt ofte Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien, uit veelerhande Schriften ende Aen-teekeningen van verscheyden Natien; a second edition also in Dutch, came out in 1630 as Beschrijvinghe van West-Indien door Joannes De Laet. Tweede druk: In ontallycke placesen verbetert, vermeerdert, met eenige nieuwe caerten, beelden van verscheijden dieren ende planten verciert.

A Latin edition from 1633, prepared by himself, was entitled Novus Orbis seu descriptionis Indiae Occidentalis Libri XVIII authore Joanne De Laet Antverp. Novis tabulis geographicis et variis animantium, Plantarum Fructuumque iconibus illustrata; in 1640 he published a French edition, in his own translation, as L'Histoire du Nouveau Monde ou description des Indes Occidentales, contenant dix-huict livres, enrichi de nouvelles tables geographiqiues & figures des animaux, plantes & fruicts.

Each successive edition had significantly updated maps.

Other works The Empire of the Great Mogul, translated by J.S. Hoyland with S.N. Bannerjee. Taraporevela, Bombay, 1928. Reissued Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi, 1975. "Persia" (Latin: Persia seu Regni Persici Status Variaque Itinera in atque per Persiam : cum Aliquot Iconibus Incolarum), LVGD. BATAV. ex officina Elzeviriana, Anna MDCXXXIII (1633).

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