Gerard de Jode was born in Nijmegen in 1509, and died in Antwerp in 1591. In 1547 he was admitted to the Guild of St. Luke, and became a print seller. In 1550 he was licensed as a printer. He printed Jacopo Gastaldi's map of the world in 1555, Jacob van Deventer's map of Brabant in 1558, maps by Bartholomeus Musinus, Fernando Alvares Seco, and Abraham Ortelius' eight sheet map of the world in 1564. In 1578 he published his Speculum Orbis Terrarum. Plate IX was the map which is reproduced on the souvenir sheet honoring NETANYA ‘86 National Stamp Exhibition.
     The map was created by Tilleman Stella, a German mathematician and mapmaker, in 1557. It covered the territory of Palestine in great detail, identifying 291 places by name, on a map that measured 12 by 20 inches. The map also included three insets, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and a third unidentified picture. The map was engraved by the brothers Jan and Lucas van Doeticum. This map was to become “a prototype for the modern cartography of the Holy Land” (Kenneth Nebenzahl, Maps of the Holy Land: Images of Terra Sancta Through Two Millenia, New York: 1986, p. 85)
     The map is oriented to the northwest. The Dead Sea is misshapen. The Jordan River is one of several rivers identified. The final stages of the Exodus from Egypt is marked by double dotted lines just to the left of Jerusalem. The resort of Netanya, the location of the exhibition is located on the coast about half-way between to two vertical boundaries of the stamp on the sheet. It was not founded until 1929.