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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 / 1579
Size:
20 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
7875
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
9113
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
18314
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
18315
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
17.5 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
17507
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
17.5 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
17918
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
19955
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
20 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
20013
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
20 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
20236
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
20437
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
24629
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
27216
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579 (1584)
Size:
20 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
28484
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
20 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
29253
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
13 x 8 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
32729bp
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
34824
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
36550
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579 circa
Size:
19 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
36269
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
16 x 12 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
39319se
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
41840
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
20 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
40763
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
45516
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
45897d
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
17.5 x 12 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
49333
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579 circa
Size:
20 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
50283
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
57982
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
20 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
45897e
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
20 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
52029
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
20 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
55245hb
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
59162mp2
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
20 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
63262
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
17.5 x 15 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
61576
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
61580
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
61584
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
65819
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
64868
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
Condition:
Good
Stock#:
65590
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
71020
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
18.5 x 13.75 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
60657
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1579
Size:
19.5 x 13.5 inches
Condition:
VG
Stock#:
95567
Place/Date:
Antwerp / 1580
Size:
19.5 x 14 inches
Condition:
VG+
Stock#:
30653