Maps are so common today that we use them in our cars, rely on them in real estate transactions and download them from the Web. But before 1600, they were jealously guarded secrets that nations used to stake their claims on "new" lands.

However, as printed books became popular, the public demand for maps and atlases (collections of maps in bound form) also grew. Henricus Hondius' ornately decorated world map first appeared in the 1633 edition of the Atlas that was originally published in 1595 by the Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator and subsequently published by the Hondius family. The world is depicted in two hemispheres, which are bordered by the representation of the four elements of fire, air, water and land as well as portraits of Julius Caesar, the second century A.D. geographer Claudius Ptolemy, and the atlas' first two publishers, Mercator and Hondius.