Belgium Catholic, feu Decem Province, Germany Interiors.

Map of Belgium. When charting the history of map-making, one discovers that each country saw the emergence of a new nation as the dominant force in the field. In the 15th-century, the Italians were at the forefront, gaining new information from explorers and navigators who sailed to the New World. The Dutch took over in the 16th-century, with innovative cartographers such as Gerard Mercator who established the Mercator Protection still in use today, and Abraham Ortelius who created the first atlas in the modern sense of the word.
Following the long period of Dutch domination, Germany-followed by France, and later Britain and the United States-became the center of the world map-making industry. Within Germany, the most important map publishers were Johann Baptist Homann and his heirs.
Johann Baptist Homann (1663-1724) founded his business in Nuremberg around the year 1702. Homann was an engraver and map seller, geographer to the Kaiser of the Holy Roman Empire and a member of the Prussian Royal Academy of Science. As the patriarch and founder of eighteenth century Germany's most prolific map publishing house, Homann and his heirs issued numerous world atlases including Neuer Atlas (1714), Grosser Atlas (1737) and Atlas Maior (1780) as well as a special Atlas of Germany (1750). Characteristically, Homann maps were issued plain and hand-colored.
Their cartouches, as in the example "America Septentrionalis", were usually left unpainted. One of the strengths of Homann's work was that he constantly revised his maps and atlases, improving them with new information and corrections of all kinds.