Paulus Merula was a noted scholar in Leiden. He was the chief librarian of the University Library of Leiden and also studied history, geography, the law and classics. He published several books, including a widely admired history of Holland. In 1605, two years before his death, he issued his "Cosmographia Generalis" a geographical work in three volumes with particular emphasis on France, Spain and Italy.

Bound in this volume is a map of the world engraved by Jan van Doetecum, one of the finest engravers working in Holland at the time. The map is largely based on a map issued in a Bible by Dutch master cartographer, Petrus Plancius, in 1590. Plancius himself based on much of his geography on Gerhard Mercator's map of 1569, making some aspects of this 1605 map obsolete, including the concept of the North Pole being divided into four separate islands. However, other aspects of the map were highly advanced, including the addition of Novaya Zembla or Nova Zembla and the inclusion of two celestial hemispheres on the upper and lower centres, these again derived from a later Plancius maps of 1592 and 1594.

However, the most notable feature of this map is the inclusion of four small insets illustrating individual maps on each corner. These show the islands of Japan, Iceland, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and St. Helena. While this is not the first time that these islands have been portrayed individually in cartographic form, it is the first time that they have been portrayed as insets in this manner. The most likely reason was to highlight their recent discovery and their importance. Both Japan and Ceylon were perceived as exotic, mysterious and wealthy with the latter being cited as a major source of cinnamon; Iceland had become the centre of the northern whaling industry and St. Helena was an important staging post for the long and dangerous sea voyages to the Far East.

The map of Iceland is based on the Ortelius map which in turn was credited to Andreas Vedel although now it is generally accepted as being the work of Bishop Gudbrandur Thorlaksson; the panorama of St. Helena is based on Hugo van Linschoten's map issued in his "Itinerario" while the shape of Ceylon is take again taken from Linschoten's map of the Indian Ocean which he, in turn acquired from Portuguese Portolans in Goa. The distinctive 'shrimp-shaped' Japan can ultimately be traced to the exquisite Portolan chart of the Portuguese cartographer Fernao Vaz Dourado again based in Goa.

Merula's work proved popular and was issued twice after his death but only the 1605 first edition contained the map, making it rare. Framed.

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