16th Century. Flemish

Frans Hogenberg was an important Flemish printer and mapmaker, the son of Nicolaus Hogenberg (ca. 1500-1539), who was also an engraver as well as a painter and drawing artist of German descent. Around 1560, Frans headed for France in the company of the geographers Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius. The latter was the author of "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum", regarded as the first modern atlas. In 1568 Hogenberg was banned from Antwerp by the Duke of Alba and, after a period spent in England, he moved to Cologne in 1570 where he settled and set up his own publishing house which would remained in operation through the seventeenth century. He died in Cologne in 1590.

Hogenberg is known principally for his contribution as a printer to the publications "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum" and "Civitates Orbis Terrarum", two absolutely seminal books in the field of cartography.