Joris van Spilbergen

Joris van Spilbergen (Antwerp 1568 to Bergen op Zoom 1620) led two voyages that were printed and read across Europe. In 1601 to 1604 he sailed with three ships from Veere to Ceylon, where he was received by the king of Kandy: the first Dutch contact with the island. In 1614 to 1617 he commanded the fleet of the East India Company that passed the Strait of Magellan, defeated a Spanish squadron off Peru, crossed the Pacific and returned by the Cape, the fifth circumnavigation of the world.

The account of the circumnavigation, the Oost ende West-Indische Spiegel, was published at Leiden by Nicolaes van Geelkercken in 1619, in Dutch and in Latin, with twenty-five engraved plates and maps, and was bound with the journal of Le Maire and Schouten's discovery of Cape Horn. A French edition followed in 1621, and Saeghman reprinted the text in popular editions around 1663. The Ceylon voyage appeared in Commelin's Begin ende Voortgangh.

Our collection brings together the first editions, the later issues and single plates from the Spiegel, such as the chart of the Strait of Magellan and the map of the East Indies.