Willem Janszoon Blaeu, one of Holland’s most distinguished map and globe makers of the early seventeenth century, was born at the village of Alkmaar in the year 1571; such is the record which finds general acceptance.[1] Of his childhood nothing is known. It was some time in his early boyhood days that he went to Amsterdam, where he found employment, it appears at first, in the house of a Holland merchant, and later as a joiner’s apprentice. We can be certain neither of the time when he decided to leave Amsterdam, nor of the circumstances which induced him to visit the island of Hveen, then belonging to Denmark,[2] an event of much significance in his life. We, however, cannot be far wrong …
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