The 48cm-tall 1612 edition of the atlas was probably hand-colored to order for Cesare d’Isle, Duke of Ferrara and Modena, whose coat of arms adorns the covers. Frans Hogenberg and Ortelius were the primary engravers of these beautiful maps, though the designs are based on the works of many previous cartographers whom Ortelius widely credits throughout. Watts, “The European Religious Worldview and its Influence on Mapping,” in The History of Cartographyįirst published in 1587 in collaboration with the cartographer Gerardus Mercator (who later became one of his competitors), Abraham Ortelius’s Typus Orbis Terrarum was the first world atlas-a collection of standard maps bound together-and the most successful early atlas, going to forty editions by 1641 (Woodward, The History of Cartography 1322). Late in life, he also aided Welser in his edition of the Peutinger Table (1598).In Abraham Ortelius’s 1587 Typus Orbis Terrarum “a world map is surrounded by quotations from Cicero and Seneca meditating on the transient insignificance of human affairs when viewed from a cosmic perspective.” -Paula M. In 1584 he issued his Nomenclator Ptolemaicus, a Parergon (a series of maps illustrating ancient history, sacred and secular). In 1578 he laid the basis of a critical treatment of ancient geography with his Synonymia geographica (issued by the Plantin press at Antwerp and republished as Thesaurus geographicus in 1596). In 1575 he was appointed geographer to the king of Spain, Philip II, on the recommendation of Arias Montanus, who vouched for his orthodoxy (his family, as early as 1535, had fallen under suspicion of Protestantism). In 1573, Ortelius published seventeen supplementary maps under the title of Additamentum Theatri Orbis Terrarum. Most of the maps in Ortelius' Theatrum were drawn from the works of a number of other mapmakers from around the world a list of 87 authors is given by Ortelius himself Later editions would also be issued in Spanish and English by Ortelius’ successors, Vrients and Plantin, the former adding a number of maps to the atlas, the final edition of which was issued in 1612. By the time of his death in 1598, a total of 25 editions were published including editions in Latin, Italian, German, French, and Dutch. On May 20, 1570, Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum first appeared in an edition of 70 maps. Ortelius also published a map of Egypt in 1565, a plan of Brittenburg Castle on the coast of the Netherlands, and a map of Asia, prior to 1570. The only extant copy of this great map is in the library of the University of Basel. In 1564 he completed his “ mappemonde", an eight-sheet map of the world. From that point forward, he devoted himself to the compilation of his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World), which would become the first modern atlas. In 1560, while traveling with Gerard Mercator to Trier, Lorraine, and Poitiers, he seems to have been attracted, largely by Mercator’s influence, towards a career as a scientific geographer. His early career was as a business man, and most of his journeys before 1560, were for commercial purposes. In 1547 he entered the Antwerp guild of St Luke as afsetter van Karten. Ortelius started his career as a map colorist.
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