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Abraham Ortelius is perhaps the best known and most frequently collected of all sixteenth-century mapmakers. Ortelius started his career as a map colorist. In 1547 he entered the Antwerp guild of St Luke as afsetter van Karten. His early career was as a business man, and most of his journeys before 1560, were for commercial purposes. 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. 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 1564 he completed his “mappemonde", an eight-sheet map of the world. The only extant copy of this great map is in the library of the University of Basel. 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.

On May 20, 1570, Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum first appeared in an edition of 70 maps. By the time of his death in 1598, a total of 25 editions were published including editions in Latin, Italian, German, French, and Dutch. 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. 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

In 1573, Ortelius published seventeen supplementary maps under the title of Additamentum Theatri Orbis Terrarum. 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 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 1584 he issued his Nomenclator Ptolemaicus, a Parergon (a series of maps illustrating ancient history, sacred and secular). Late in life, he also aided Welser in his edition of the Peutinger Table (1598).


Archived

Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
19.5 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
61308
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
18.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
61318
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
19 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
63610
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
18.5 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
59045mp2
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
18.75 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
59889mp2
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
19 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
60329
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
17 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
61447
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
20 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
62554
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574 circa
Size:
19.5 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
65613
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
19.5 x 13 inches
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
66346
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
16 x 12.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
67479
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
18.5 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
67841
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574 circa
Size:
20 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
70274
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
19.5 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
69853
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
10.25 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
Poor
Stock#:
75252
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574 circa
Size:
9 x 12.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
85177
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1574
Size:
19 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
91559
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
3215
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
4372
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
5960
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
9671
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
20264
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
17 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
23515
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575 circa
Size:
3.75 x 6.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
25728
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
17 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
27829
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575 circa
Size:
19 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
34920
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
42139
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575 circa
Size:
18 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
58697
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19.5 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
61261
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19.5 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
81248
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
18.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
82211
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
85610
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
17.5 x 12 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
89566
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575
Size:
19.5 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
92747
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1575 circa
Size:
20 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
91657
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1578 circa
Size:
18 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
41393
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
10589
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
10760
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
13531
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
13642
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
13645
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
6543
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
16 x 12 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
7450
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
18 x 13 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
7458
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
7461