Petrus Plancius
Petrus Plancius ( Dutch Pieter Platevoet "Peter Plattfuß"; also Platevoete , Plantius , Plat , Platt ; * 1552 in Dranouter , West Flanders , † 1622 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch theologian , astronomer and cartographer . Plancius made numerous maps as well as star maps and celestial globes and introduced new constellations . As a Calvinist pastor, he opposed the teachings of Martin Luther and Remonstrant colleagues such as Jacobus Arminius and Vorstius .
Life
Plancius was born in Dranouter (today part of Heuvelland ) under the name Pieter Platevoet as the son of a wealthy Flemish family. He went to school in Hondschoote and studied mathematics , astronomy , geography , history , theology and foreign languages in England . As was customary among scholars at the time, he changed his name to the Latin form Petrus Plancius. In 1576 he became pastor of the Reformed Church in Meenen , but traveled all over the country to preach. That was risky as the Netherlands fell to the Catholic Habsburgs in early 1482 . It was part of the Burgundian Netherlands and King Philip II was strictly Catholic. In 1568 there was a nationwide uprising, but the Spanish line of the Habsburgs was able to keep the southern part. People of different faiths only had the option to convert or to leave the country.
Plancius was active in Mechelen , Brussels and Leuven for seven years . In 1579 he married the widow Johanna Geubels. In 1585 Plancius fled to Bergen-op-Zoom to avoid the Duke of Parma and the Inquisition . In December he was appointed preacher in Amsterdam. There he turned to the natural sciences, navigation and cartography . The couple had eight children baptized in Amsterdam. In 1590 Plancius Mercator improved the world map and created five maps for a Dutch edition of the so-called Plancius Bible . In 1592 he imported 25 nautical charts from Portugal, made by Bartholomeu Lasso . In the same year Plancius produced the large world map Nova et exacta Terrarum Tabula geographica et hydrographica , a reflection of the geographical knowledge of his time, which was later very widespread.
Plancius advised the Compagnie van Verre , founded by Amsterdam merchants in 1594 , with the aim of the spice trade with East India (today's Indonesia ). In order to avoid conflicts with the naval powers Spain and Portugal, he recommended a hitherto unknown route around northern Asia and instructed the commander of the fleet, Willem Barents , in astronomical navigation. This northeast passage over the Arctic Ocean could not be found in three expeditions from 1594 to 1597. It was decided at the same time to try a southern route. Here, too, the advice of Plancius was sought.
At the time, it was believed that compass needles showed deviations the further south you went. Jan Huygen van Linschoten gave in his Reys-Gheschschrift vande navigatien the Portugaloysers in Orienten (travel report on the Portuguese navigation in the Orient) a variety of sailing routes, not only for the routes between Portugal and India, but also between India, China and Japan. Simon Stevin and Plancius tried to find a solution. Plancius (or Adriaan Metius ) instructed Frederick de Houtman in determining astronomical positions. He asked the navigator Pieter Keyser to make sky observations, to map the southern starry sky and equipped him with a device (probably an astrolabe ) so that the deviation could be corrected.
The first Dutch East India expedition, from April 1595 to August 1597, was a disaster and a commercial failure. Of the 249 participants, only 87 returned alive; the majority had died as a result of illness and violence. In addition, only a few barrels of pepper, nutmeg and mace could be purchased. The company is seen as the beginning of Dutch trade in East Asia. For the time being, Portugal's monopoly in the spice trade was broken.
Keyser , who died near Banten , and Houtman had successfully surveyed the southern sky and made a star catalog, introducing twelve new constellations. Plancius first placed them on a celestial globe in 1597/1598, published in 1600 by Jodocus Hondius , and in 1602 and 1603 on globes by Willem Blaeu . Johann Bayer took it over in his 1603 sky atlas Uranometria .
After 1598, Plancius initially stopped making maps. He has been criticized for his sermons too often on astronomy, the New World, and the East Indies when he was poorly prepared. In 1599 he started teaching seafarers. In 1602 the Dutch East India Company was founded. Apparently afterwards he turned more to theology. He sought missions on ships and in the Moluccas . In 1603 he preferred the doctrine of predestination and fought harder and harder against Arminianism . In 1609 he came to Alkmaar to take action against the humanistic pastor Adolf Venator , originally from Duisburg . In 1610 he became one of the leaders of the counter-demonstrators and advocated a national synod . In 1618 he was not invited to participate because of his intolerance , but was allowed to revise a planned new translation of the Bible.
Plancius was interested in founding a Dutch West India Company ; the preparations were suspended from 1609, when the "twelve-year existence" was proclaimed. He was included when Henry Hudson and Jan Cornelisz. May carried out several expeditions in the New World. On May 25th, Plancius was not buried in a church as usual for a clergyman of his rank, but outside of it at his request.
Constellations according to Plancius
A number of newly introduced constellations go back to Plancius : in 1589 he reworked a celestial globe. In addition to the existing images, he recorded the Magellanic Cloud (which was still unnamed) and two constellations:
- Crux. ( Southern Cross )
- Triangulum Australe. ( Southern triangle )
He had taken the information on this from the reports of explorers, namely Andreas Corsali (1512), Amerigo Vespucci (1501) and Pedro de Medina . However, the triangle is upside down and the cross is located with Eridanus . He did not correct this until 1598 with the data from Keyser and de Houtman. That is why it is now ascribed to them and thus to Bayer.
On the Terrarum Tabula from 1592, two star maps of the northern and southern skies are shown in the upper part . They contain two new constellations:
- Columba. ( Pigeon )
- Polophylax ("Guardian of the South Pole")
Both can also be found on the world map from 1597.
It was not until 1612 that he made a celestial globe based on his own observations, the notes of Tycho Brahe and other astronomers. He introduced eight new constellations in his celestial globe. Six of them are often wrongly attributed to the Silesian cartographer Jacob Bartsch , who included them in a star map in 1624 and gave them religious meanings. Plancius himself did not leave his reasons for introducing these constellations. The constellations introduced by Plancius are:
- Gallus. ( Rooster ), west of the Big Dog - Alector Gallus Dio near Bartsch, the rooster that crowed when Jesus was betrayed three times by Peter
- Apis. ( Bee ), north of the ram - Vespa (wasp) near Bartsch, an insect mentioned in the story of Samson ; later Musca (fly) at Hevelius 1690
- Camelpardalis. ( Giraffe ), north of the carter - allegedly the mount that Rebekah rode to her wedding with Isaac . It is obviously a translation mistake, probably meant a camel.
- Jordanis Fluvius. ( Jordan ), southern stars of the Great Bear
- Tigris Fluvius. ( Tigris ), southern stars of the Big Dipper - the rivers Tigris and Jordan are the Garden of Eden spring
- Monoceros Unicornis. ( Unicorn ), north of the Big Dog - a unicorn that appears in old Bible translations
- Cancer Minor. ( Little Cancer ), west of the "big" Cancer
- Sagitta Australis. ( Southern arrow ), east of the scorpion
From Plancius' constellations only the dove, the giraffe and the unicorn are used today.
Works
- Five maps of Paradise, the people of Israel on Sinai etc. in the Plancius Bible
- Nova et exacta Terrarum Tabula geographica et hydrographica. 1592.
- Earth map 1594.
- World map from 1597.
- Celestial Globe 1598.
- Orbis terrarum typus de integro multis in locis emendatus. Alberti Henrici & Cornelii Nicolai, The Hague 1599.
- Celestial globe 1612.
literature
- Friedrich Ratzel: Plancius, Peter . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 26, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1888, p. 223 f.
- Publications by and about Petrus Plancius in VD 17 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stadsarchief Amsterdam [1] ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Cornelis Claesz (approx. 1551–1609), grondlegger van de Amsterdamse commerciële cartografie [2]
- ^ Gary D. Thompson: Modern Western Constellations. 28: The constellating of the southern sky. Web Document 2007.
- ↑ Keuning, J. (1946) Petrus Plancius. Theoloog en geograaf 1552–1622, p. 26.
- ^ Wilhelm Geesink: Calvinisten in Holland, Rotterdam 1887, p. 94 ( online , accessed December 3, 2013)
- ↑ The Flemish Founding Of The Dutch West India Company (1)
- ^ Article "Plancius, Peter" by Friedrich Ratzel in: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, published by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Volume 26 (1888), pp. 223-224, digital full-text edition in Wikisource, URL: ADB : Plancius, Peter (Version of December 14, 2012, 04:40 UTC)
- ↑ Platevoet, Plaetevoet en Plancius
- ↑ Jim Fuchs: Filling the Sky. 2003, ISBN 0-9744397-1-1 ; Chapter Triangulum Australe. P. 79 as a web document ( memento of the original dated August 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , PDF 0.2 MB
- ^ Crux - Ian Ridpath: Startales.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Plancius, Peter |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Platevoet, Pieter |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch theologian, astronomer and cartographer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1552 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Flanders |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1622 |
| Place of death | Amsterdam |