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Nice old color example of Blaeu's map of Brandenburg, Pomerania and Meckelenburg.
The map is centered on Berlin and Brandenburg, with an ornate coat of arms in the title (Marquis of Brandenburg) and 3 smaller coats of arms in the map.
The map shows the lower Oder River, extending to the Baltic Sea, with the towns of Stettin (Szczecin), Crossen (Krosno Odrzańskie), and Glogaw, shown on the river.
Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638) was a prominent Dutch geographer and publisher. Born the son of a herring merchant, Blaeu chose not fish but mathematics and astronomy for his focus. He studied with the famous Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, with whom he honed his instrument and globe making skills. Blaeu set up shop in Amsterdam, where he sold instruments and globes, published maps, and edited the works of intellectuals like Descartes and Hugo Grotius. In 1635, he released his atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, sive, Atlas novus.
Willem died in 1638. He had two sons, Cornelis (1610-1648) and Joan (1596-1673). Joan trained as a lawyer, but joined his father’s business rather than practice. After his father’s death, the brothers took over their father’s shop and Joan took on his work as hydrographer to the Dutch East India Company. Later in life, Joan would modify and greatly expand his father’s Atlas novus, eventually releasing his masterpiece, the Atlas maior, between 1662 and 1672.
![Chart of the North and Baltic Seas [insets of St. Petersburg, Heligoland and Revel]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/72115.jpg)