Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
This item has been sold, but you can enter your email address to be notified if another example becomes available.
Description

Detailed early map of Ireland, oriented with west at the top.

This fine miniature map is from "Il Theatro del Mondo," the famous plagiarized version of Ortelius' pocket atlas published specifically for the Italian market by Pietro Marchetti. Ortelius' original plates were re-engraved in 1598 in Brescia, where Italian titles were added. While the map is from different plates, it is all but identical to the 1593 Italian Plantijn "Theatro..." Marchetti's Italian publication was not immediately successful and more than 50 years passed until the second impression was issued from Turin in 1655. A further six editions were re-issued, the last 1724. This example is from the first edition in 1598.

The title appears beneath the lower neatline of the map and in the cartouche in the upper right corner. Major towns are named and an indication of rivers, castles and hilly areas are given. The map is quite decorative for a miniature and includes a lion's head in the cartouche, a sea monster, and two sailing ships. Italian text on verso.


A good illustration of the demand for maps at this time resulting in international re-issues of important works.

Condition Description
Minor dampstain and some soiling and toning.
Reference
Shirley: World, 109. Shirley: British Isles 212.
Abraham Ortelius Biography

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).