|
||
|
|
|
|
Fine example of Ortelius's map of Austria, based on an important map of Austria by Wolfgang Lazius.This map appeared in Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas ever published.
This decorative regional map of Austria and Hungary follows the Danube from Lintz to Bratislava and extends north to the Teya and south to the region around Graz. The map is highly detailed, with hundreds of cities named, regions denoted in Gothic script, and forests, rivers, mountains, and other geogrpahical regions shown. The mpa includes a scale bar and a simple cartouche.
The map is drawn from Wolfgang Lazius' Typi Chorographici Provinciarum Austriae, printed by Michael Zimmermann in Vienna in 1561, which was intended by Lazius to serve as a geographical work to illustrate his Commentarii Rerum Austriacarum, which was never published. Lazius's work is the first printed atlas of Austria.
Lazius' original maps are quite extraordinary, as each is done in an oval or circular frame, mounted against the double-headed Austrian eagle, with wings of the eagle adorned with the coats of arms of each Austrian province.
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.
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).
![(First state!) Lacus Constantiensis XX Tab Nova [The Bodensee]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/94703.jpg)
![[ Electors of the Holy Roman Empire ] Ordines Sacri Romani Imp: Ab Ottone III Instituti](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/99053.jpg)
![Rhetiae alpestris descriptio in qua hodie Tirolis Comitatus [with] Goritiae, Karstii, Chaczeolae, Carniolae, Histriae, et Windorum Marchae Descrip.](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/83989.jpg)