Plancius
Petrus Plancius
(1552 – May 15, 1622) was a Flemish astronomer, cartographer and clergyman. He was born as Pieter Platevoet in Dranouter, now inHeuvelland, West Flanders. 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 into 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 strongly believed in the idea of a North East passage through North America until the failure of Willem Barentsz's third voyage in 1597 seemed to preclude the possibility of such a route.
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Cartography[edit]
He was one of the founders of the Dutch East India Company for which he drew over 100 maps.In 1592 he published his best known world map titled "Nova et exacta Terrarum Tabula geographica et hydrographica".[1] Apart from maps, he published journals and navigational guides and developed a new method for determining longitude. He also introduced the Mercator projection for navigational maps.
Plancius was closely acquainted with Henry Hudson, an explorer of the New World.
Plancius prepared the map, Exacta & accurata delinatio… regionibus China, Cauchinchina, Camboja, sive Champa, Syao, Malacca, Arracan & Pegu,published in Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s popular book, Itinerario (1596).[2]
Uranography[edit]
In 1589 he collaborated with the Amsterdam cartographer Jacob Floris van Langren on a 32.5-cm celestial globe, which, using the sparse information available about southern celestial features, for the first time depicted: Crux the southern cross, Triangulum Australe the southern triangle, and theMagellanic Clouds, Nubecula Major and Minor...