BEGIN ENDE VOORTGANGH

Van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie

Facsimile reprint: 4 volumes with differing pagination, numerous black and white illustrations, maps and plates, full faux green leather bindings, VOC crest in gilt on the upper covers, red title labels gilt on the spines, top edges gilt, a very good set.

Includes the journals of many explorers - Heemskerk and Barentsz, the East-India voyages of Houtman, de Keyzer and Van Spilbergen, the circumnavigations by Van Noort, Le Maire, Schouten and Van Spilbergen and others.

The colophon reads: Deze uitgave – gelijk in uiterlijk en formaat aan het origineel van de druk van 1646 – maakt deel uit van de reeks Herleefd verleden. De inleiding word geschreven door H.H. Zwager. De oplage van dit boek is beperkt

Isaac Commelin (19 October 1598, Amsterdam - 13 January 1676, Amsterdam) was a Dutch historian, a member of the vroedschap and a manager of a charity hospital, providing help to the sick and poor.

Isaac Commelijn was the son of a bookseller Jan Commelin and Catherina Valckenier. His father came from Brussels and had settled in Amsterdam around 1582.[1] Through his mother he was closely related to the powerful Valckeniers family. Isaac married into the rich Bouwer family and became the brother-in-law of nl:Syvert P. Sem, a former investor of the East India Company, involved in charity. The couple had five children, two sons Jan and Caspar. He lived at Gelderse kade en Oudezijds Achterburgwal, near Oude Kerk. His wife died in 1641.

Commelin wrote Lives of the Stadtholders William I and Maurice and Origin and Progress of the Dutch East India Company, as well as other basic works in the fields of geography, cosmography, astronomy, discovery, plague (disease) and travel.

The first edition of this work was published in 1646: Begin ende voortgangh van de Vereenighde Nederlantsche Geoctroyeerde Oost-Indische Compagnie : Vervatende de voornaemste reysen, by de inwoonderen der selver provincien derwaerts gedaen..., Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1646

From 1647-1655 he served as regent of the NZ Huiszitten House (charity (practice) for the poor). From 1655-1675 he served as regent of a hospital for victims of the plague (Pesthuis). It was his brother Caspar who served together with the painter Ferdinand Bol as regent of OZ Huiszitten House.[2]

In 1665 he cooperated with Tobias van Domselaer and Arnoldus Montanus on a book about the history of Amsterdam. He was the father of the botanist Jan Commelin and the grandfather of Caspar Commelin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Commelin