In Folio: Rare Volumes in the Stanford University Libraries

Abraham Ortelius, 1527-1598.
Theatrvm Orbis Terrarvm ….
Antuerpiae: Ex Officina Plantiniana, Abrah. Ortelij Aere & Cura, 1595.

The rapid expansion of travel and exploration in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, along with the rediscovery of Ptolemy’s Geography in 1410 stimulated the demand for accurate maps. As a youth, Abraham Ortelius of Antwerp had helped support his family by practicing the trade of “kaartenafzetter” (illuminator of maps). By the 1560s he had become remarkably well-versed in the bibliography of maps, becoming in fact the earliest known cartophile. He began to assemble maps of all areas of the world, with an eye toward publishing them; these maps would appear in 1570 as Theatrvm Orbis Terrarvm, the first modern atlas, a single volume with each map on one full sheet, and with supplementary text. This happy marriage of text and maps was continued through the seventeenth century, and greatly praised. The text on its own was sufficiently authoritative to justify being printed by itself, in a German edition (Cosmographia) in 1576. Ortelius continued to add to his own atlas: in the 1570 edition, there were fifty-three maps; in this 1595 edition, there were more than twice that number. Ortelius was primarily a publisher rather than cartographer—he gathered together the maps of others rather than creating his own (though he drew the maps of his atlas in manuscript before handing them to the engravers). His atlas was an instant success, and published in some forty editions between 1570 and 1612. Ortelius’ success resulted in his being named Geographer to Philip II of Spain.

The Gift of Alain, Richard, Jacqueline, and Alain Enthoven

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