Abraham Ortelius Wall Decorations

Antique miniature map titled 'Illyricum'. Original small map of Illyricum. The Roman province of Illyricum stretched from the Drilon River (the Drin, in...

Antique map titled 'Mansfeldiae Comitatus Descriptio'. Original antique map of the region of Mansfeld, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Shows the area between Halle a. d. Saale, Aschersleben,...

Antique map titled 'Insularum Aliquot Maris Mediterranei Descriptio'. A very attractive example of Ortelius' map combining, on one page, maps of the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, Corfu, Elba, Malta and Zerbi (Jerba, off the coast of Tunisia.) The maps detail fortifications on the islands and other major features. (Jerba, for instance, is shown connected to the mainland by a causeway.) The waters are attractively engraved and are sailed by ships. A shipwreck, north of Malta, indicates the point at which St. Paul is thought to have shipwrecked. Volcanoes are indicated in the Sicily map...

Antique map titled 'Indiae Orientalis Insularumque Adiacientium Typus'. Ortelius includes early European depictions of both Japan and China and is the first to name Formosa (Taiwan). The Philippines and East Indies or Spice Islands are shown based upon Portuguese and Spanish sources, and before their penetration by the Dutch. Japan is shown in kite form, as a large oval island...

Antique map titled 'Hispaniae Novae Sivae Magnae Recens Et Vera Descriptio 1579'. Map of western New Spain, showing the recently-created Spanish settlements, many rivers, and large l...

Copper engraving, printing on paper. Verso text is Latin, original hand coloring. From: From: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Antwerpen, Gillis van den Rade, 1575. Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) The maker of the 'first atlas', the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570), was born on 4 April 1527 into an old Antwerp family. He learned Latin and studied Greek and mathematics. Abraham and his sisters Anne and Elizabeth took up map colouring. He was admitted to the Guild of St. Luke as an "illuminator of maps." Besides colouring maps, Ortelius was a dealer in antiques, coins, maps, and books, with the book and map trade gradually becoming his primary occupation. Business went well because his means permitted him to start an extensive collection of medals, coins, antiques, and a library of many volumes. In addition, he travelled a lot and visited Italy and France, made contacts everywhere with scholars and editors, and maintained extensive correspondence with them. In 1564 he published his first map, a large and ambitious world wall map. The inspiration for this map may well have been Gastaldi's large world map. In 1565 he published a map of Egypt and a map of the Holy Land, a large map of Asia followed. In 1568 the production of individual maps for his atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was already in full swing. He completed the atlas in 1569, and in May of 1570, the Theatrum was available for sale. It was one of the most expensive books ever published. This first edition contained seventy maps on fifty-three sheets. Franciscus Hogenberg engraved the maps. Later editions included Additamenta (additions), resulting in Ortelius' historical atlas, the Parergon, mostly bound together with the atlas. The Parergon can be called a truly original work of Ortelius, who drew the maps based on his research. The importance of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum for geographical knowledge in the last quarter of the sixteenth century is difficult to overemphasize. Nothing was like it until Mercator's atlas appeared twenty-five years later. Demand for the Theatrum was remarkable. Some 24 editions appeared during Ortelius's lifetime and another ten after his death in 1598. Editions were published in Dutch, German, French, Spanish, English, and Italian. The number of map sheets grew from 53 in 1570 to 167 in 1612 in the last edition. In 1577, engraver Philip Galle...