Jan Saenredam

As an orphan, Jan lived with his uncle, Pieter de Jongh, a bailiff in Assendelft who first sent him to learn basket weaving as a profession.

His first map is dated 1589 and is of the province of Holland, which could be seen in the city book of Guiccardijn (referring to a 1593 work by Lodovico Guicciardini called The Description of the Low Countries).

[1] He was visited by a lawyer called Spoorwater tot Assendelft, who convinced his guardian to let him apply his gift, and thus young Saenredam was sent to learn drawing from Hendrick Goltzius in Haarlem, where he became a master at the age of 24 (in 1589).

[3] Jan left his wife a sizeable estate as a result of lucrative investments in the Dutch East India Company.

[4] He died of typhus on April 6, 1607, and was buried in the choir of the Saint Adolphus church at Assendelft, with the gravestone inscription Ioannis Saenredam Sculptoris celeberrimi.