Egypt is a country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Joan Blaeu (1596-1673) was a Dutch cartographer, the son of cartographer Willem Blaeu. In 1635 they published the Atlas Novus (full title: Theatrum orbis terrarum, sive, Atlas novus) in two volumes. The Atlas Maior is the final version of Joan Blaeu's atlas, published in Amsterdam between 1662 and 1672, in Latin, French, Dutch, German and Spanish, containing 594 maps and around 3, 000 pages of text. The Blaeu maps emphasized fine art and colours, being the most expensive of the time. The Atlas Maior is widely considered a masterpiece of the Golden Age of Dutch/Netherlandish cartography. |