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Striking regional map of the Low Countries from Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas of the world.
This late 16th-century map by Abraham Ortelius, titled "Gelriae, Cliviae, Finitimorum Que Locorum Verissima Descriptio," was drawn from the work of Christian Schrot. The map meticulously details the regions of Gelderland (Gelria), Cleves (Clivia), and adjacent areas.
Gelderland, a significant province in the northern part of the Holy Roman Empire (now part of the Netherlands), played a crucial role in the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648). During the second half of the 16th century, Gelderland was a contested region due to its strategic location and economic importance. Major cities such as Arnhem, Nijmegen, and Zutphen were significant in this context. Gelderland was a battleground during the Eighty Years' War as Dutch rebels fought for independence from Spanish rule. The province saw numerous military campaigns and skirmishes, impacting its cities and fortifications.
The Duchy of Cleves was an influential territory in the western part of the Holy Roman Empire, bordering the Netherlands. In the late 16th century, Cleves was involved in various political and military conflicts, including the War of the Jülich Succession (1609–1614), which began towards the end of this period. Major cities like Cleves (Kleve) and Wesel were significant. The region was crucial due to its strategic position along the Rhine River. The Duchy of Cleves maintained relative autonomy and played a vital role in the power dynamics between the Spanish, Dutch, and German states.
The map also includes parts of neighboring regions, highlighting the interconnected nature of these territories during the period. Brabant, located to the south, was a major region in the Spanish Netherlands and a key area of conflict during the Eighty Years' War. Major cities included Antwerp and Brussels. To the east, Westphalia was part of the Holy Roman Empire, consisting of several ecclesiastical territories and small principalities. Its cities, like Münster and Paderborn, were centers of religious and political activity.
The map provides a detailed representation of rivers, forests, and settlements, reflecting the cartographic precision of the time. Decorated with ornate cartouches, ships, and sea monsters, the map exemplifies the artistic style of Ortelius's work. The map delineates the borders between the regions, highlighting the complex political landscape of the late 16th century.
Christian Schrot (or Sgrooten)
Christian Schrot, also known as Sgrooten, was born around 1532 in Kalkar, Germany. He worked as a geometrician and engraver before entering the service of the royal court of Spain as a cartographer in 1557. Schrot created numerous maps, including "Gelria & Clivia" (Antwerp, 1567), "Germania" (Antwerp, 1565), "Terra Sancta" (1570), and "Westfalia" (1565). His works were extensively used by Abraham Ortelius, a renowned cartographer of the period. Schrot’s maps titled "Danubium" and "The Peregrination of the Children of God" were known to Ortelius and mentioned in Ortelius's "Catalogus Auctorum" but were not included in Ortelius's atlases.
From 1570 onwards, Schrot was referenced in the "Catalogus Auctorum", highlighting his contributions to the field of cartography. His map of Luxemburg was added to this catalog in 1595.
Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (or "Theater of the World") is widely considered to be the first modern atlas, meaning that this was the first published set of uniform maps with supporting text gathered in book form. Previous bound map collections exist, for example the Italian Lafreri atlases, but these were sets of maps selected and bound together on demand. The Theatrum, in contrast, was the best available summary of sixteenth-century cartographic knowledge, covering much of the exploration of the world in the century following the discovery of America.
The atlas was first published in 1570 in Antwerp. Ortelius’ atlas outperformed later competing atlases from other cartographic luminaries like the De Jode and the Mercator families. The broad appeal of the work is demonstrated by the array of languages in which the atlas appeared: in addition to Latin, the atlas was published with text in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and English. Between 1570 and 1612, at least 31 editions of the atlas were published in seven languages. The editions grew over time, with the first edition having 70 maps on 53 sheets, and the 1612 edition having 167.
At the time of its publication, the Theatrum was the most expensive book ever produced. Ortelius created all the maps personally, hand drawing the rough sketches. Those drawings were then interpreted into prints by his engravers Frans Hogenberg, Ambrosius Arsenius, and Ferdinand Arsenius.
After Ortelius's death in 1598, the copper plates for his atlas passed to his heirs. They, in turn, sold the collection to Jan Baptist Vrients (1522-1612) in 1601. Vrients added new maps and published the atlas until his own death in 1612. Vrients's widow then sold the plates to the Moretus brothers, who were the successors of Christoffel Plantin. Recent research has unearthed examples of the atlas with maps dated to 1640.
1609/1612/1641S41 or 43 (325 copies printed) (last line, left aligned: Pero hallaras declaracion cumplidissima d'ella en Guicciardino,en su Germania inferior.),
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).
![Ducatus Iuliacensis, Cliviensis, Montensis: et Comitatus Marciae et Rapens-Bergae, finitimaeque eis Regiones [The Duchy of Jülich, Kleve, and Berg, and the Counties of Mark and Ravenstein, and the neighboring regions.]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/75285.jpg)
