Philip Galle

Even while he worked from 1557 for the Antwerp publisher Hieronymus Cock, he established himself as an independent printer in Haarlem in 1563, where he made prints after Johannes Stradanus and Maerten de Vos.

He was a friend of the Antwerp printer Christopher Plantin and perhaps part of the secretive humanist circle of the Familia Caritatis (Family of Love), which makes it difficult to place him as Catholic or Protestant during the Dutch Revolt.

As a resident of Antwerp, Galle witnessed numerous events of the Eighty Years War, notably the siege and looting of the town in 1576 by the Spaniards, called "The Spanish Fury".

This booklet, which included several maps, was dedicated to archduke Matthias of Austria, a relative of the legal king Philip II of Spain, but not recognised by him as a landvoogd or supervisor of the country.

[1] Pictures from the Theatri Orbis Terrarum Enchiridion 1585 Engravings attributed to Galle The Seven Sacraments (1576) with Hans Bol