Bernhardus Varenius

Next year (1650) appeared, also through Elzevir, the work by which he is best known, his Geographia Generalis, in which he endeavored to lay down the general principles of the subject on a wide scientific basis, according to the knowledge of his day.

Varenius followed the Sphaera mundi (1620) of Giuseppe Biancani, though he also introduced ideas that had come into thinking during the intervening decades.

The third part treats briefly the actual divisions of the surface of the earth, their relative positions, globe and map-construction, longitude, navigation, etc.

Among later geographers d'Anville and Alexander von Humboldt especially drew attention to Varen's genius and services to science.

[1] Varenius's (1650), Geographia generalis, in qua affectiones generales telluris explicantur, from the Linda Hall Library