Hendrik Hondius I

He was born as the son of Guillam (Willem) de Hondt, a philologist, in Duffel (Duchy of Brabant in Flanders).

[1][2] The 17th century Flemish biographer Cornelis de Bie reports that Hondius' father was a learned man who moved with his family to Mechelen.

After his mother's marriage to a citizen of Antwerp, Hondius was apprenticed in Brussels to Godfried van Ghelder, goldsmith to Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma.

[1] He applied himself to mathematics and studied perspective, architecture and the construction of fortifications with Hans Vredeman de Vries and Samuel Marelois.

[5] Here he published with the printer Breukel Cornelisz Nieulandt of The Hague the book Perspective by Hans Vredeman de Vries.

Hondius bought in 1614 a large house between the Binnenhof and the Gevangenpoort in The Hague which he used as work and living quarters.

He included some German and English artists in an apparent attempt to situate the Netherlanders within a broader, more semantically uncertain 'Northern' canon.

Like in the 1572 publication, he added Latin poems underneath each portrait with a short description of the specific qualities of each artist.