Antonius Sanderus (Antwerpen, 1586 – Affligem, 1664)

Antoon Sanders (in Latin Antonius Sanderus) came from a distinguished Ghent family who, temporarily fleeing from the Ghent Republic, briefly stayed in Antwerp.
He started Latin studies in the Jesuit college of Oudenaarde and completed them in Ghent. Later he studied philosophy at the Jesuit College of Douai, where he became Master Artium in 1609.
In 1611 he was ordained a priest in Ghent. In the same year, he became the pastor of a few hamlets near Eeklo. Despite the Twelve Years' Truce, the situation in the region was unsafe for him, as he had written some controversial writings against, among other things, Anabaptism in Flanders.
In 1615 he became Baccalaureus in theology at the University of Leuven, and in 1619 he returned to Douai, where he obtained a degree in theology at the University of Douai.
In 1621 he returned to Ghent, where he enjoyed the protection of Bishop Antonius Triest, who in 1623 made him chaplain and secretary to Cardinal Alfonso de la Cueva, the governor of Philip IV of Spain in the Southern Netherlands.
In 1625 he became a canon of St. Martins' Church in Ypres.

In the meantime, he did research for a prestigious history work on the county of Flanders, the Flandria Illustrata. For those searches, he visited monasteries and castles to consult the archives, something that the other canons of Ypres were not so happy with because he was too little busy with his other duties.
That is why he resigned from his religious functions in 1654 and received the post of Censor Librorum, located in Brussels.
In 1668 he offered his resignation as a canon of the chapter of Ypres. Then, finally, he left the city to settle in the Affligem Abbey, where he was warmly received by the abbot Benedictus van Haeften.
He died there on January 16, 1664, and was buried in the abbey church.

Antonius Sanderus published historical works from 1610, but his magnum opus is the richly illustrated Flandria Illustrata, sive Descriptio Comitatus Istius per Totum Terrarum Orbis Terrarum. The publication was begun by Henricus Hondius, who had a publication contract with Sanderus as early as 1634. In 1641 Hondius had the first volume printed in Leiden as Theatrum Flandriae but immediately sold the rights to Joan Blaeu. They published two volumes of the work in 1641 and 1644, respectively, with a fake publisher's address in Cologne. The work included numerous portraits, plans, views, and maps. Later, Blaeu used fifteen maps of the Flandria Illustrata for his Atlas Maior, and most of the plans were used in the town book of the Royal Netherlands.
In 1659 he published a history of Brabant abbeys and monasteries: the Chorographia sacra Brabantiae.