12 Facts About Hieronymus Cock

Hieronymus Cock, or Hieronymus Wellens de Cock was a Flemish painter and etcher as well as a publisher and distributor of prints.

Hieronymus Cock's publishing house played a key role in the transformation of printmaking from an activity of individual artists and craftsmen into an industry based on division of labour.

Hieronymus Cock's house published more than 1,100 prints between 1548 and his death in 1570, a vast number by earlier standards.

Hieronymus Cock was admitted as a master painter in the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1545.

Hieronymus Cock employed some of the best engravers of his time such as Johannes Wierix, Adriaen Collaert, Philip Galle, Cornelis Cort and the Italian Giorgio Ghisi.

The publishing house Aux Quatre Vents played an important role in the spread of the Italian High Renaissance throughout northern Europe as Hieronymus Cock published prints made by prominent engravers such as Giorgio Ghisi, Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert and Cornelis Cort after the work of leading Italian painters like Raphael, Primaticcio, Bronzino, Giulio Romano and Andrea del Sarto.

Hieronymus Cock collaborated with the Spanish cartographer Diego Gutierrez on a 1562 Map of America.

Hieronymus Cock collaborated with Antwerp architect and designer Cornelis Floris de Vriendt in the publishing of Cornelis Floris' designs for monuments and ornaments: the Veelderley niewe inuentien van antycksche sepultueren was published in 1557 and the Veelderley veranderinghe van grotissen in 1556.

The Dutch publisher Philip Galle worked at Hieronymus Cock's printing house from 1557 and succeeded him in 1570.

At his death in 1570 Hieronymus Cock left behind the most prominent print publishing establishment in Europe north of the Alps.

Hieronymus Cock had been working on this publication at the time of his death.

The book includes a poem by Lampsonius dedicated to the memory of Hieronymus Cock and applauding the work of his widow.