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 Willem Jansz Blaeu was printer, publisher and ancestor of a seventeenth-century Amsterdam family of printers. For a long time, he lived in a house on the corner of the Mandemakerssteeg in Amsterdam where he also sold his publications in his bookshop the 'Vergulde sonnewyser' (gilded sundial). Blaeu produced all kinds of printing matter, but specialised in maps and atlases. In 1636, he terminated his company and the stock of books was sold by auction, although one year later, the printing shop was re-opened at a different location on the Bloemgracht. In those days, this printing office, which was taken over by his sons after his death in 1638, was the largest in Amsterdam.