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Slide Sets |
Slide Set #2:
Maps from the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Abraham Ortelius (1584)
| Introduction |
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Abraham Ortels was born in 1527 at Antwerp, the great commercial city where he would live all his life. His father, who was probably a dealer in antiques, died when Abraham was eleven, and his mother carried on the business. We know very little about Abraham’s formal education, but we do know that he became fluent in several languages, and like many young people of the period, conceived a passionate interest in classical antiquity. This led him into dealings in antique objects, for which there was a ready market among the rich merchants, and also led him when he was twenty to latinize his name to “Ortelius.” He earned a basic living by coloring maps which he acquired from the printers of Antwerp and other towns in the Low Countires and Germany, but until about 1560 showed little inclination to compose maps of his own. By then he was well established in life, and had traveled widely, including a journey to France with Mercator in that year. During the 1560s he seems to have turned towards the idea of producing his own maps, and this led by 1570 to the publication of his celebrated Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, which has often been described as the first modern atlas. It grouped together in a common format maps of most of the known world, and was an immediate commercial success, partly because of the wide contacts and financial astuteness of its promoter. It ran through 32 editions after 1570—many of them with new of improved maps—and was translated into the major European languages. One of its most notable features was its “catalogus auctorum,” in which Ortelius set out the sources of his maps. These were finely engraved, often by Frans Hogenberg, but left something to be desired from the point of view of accuracy; as Koeman puts it, “the maps produced by Ortelius bear his characteristic mark of external perfection, but lack the internal quality of critical regeneration.” Ortelius became rich through his publishing and dealing activities, and in 1583 opened one of his houses as a museum, in which might be admired the many rich and curious objects which he had collected. By a fortunate chance, many of his letter have survived, and were published in the late nineteenth century by J.H. Hessels; we also still have his curious Album Amicorum, in which from 1574 onwards his friends and visitors signed their names. He died, a bachelor full of years and wealth, in 1598. Our slides were taken from the 1584 Antwerp edition of the Theatrum (Ayer *135 07 1584). |
| Europe (Image 1) |
 The first map in the Theatrum is one of the world, and then follow the known continents: America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. This version of Europe closely follows Mercator’s wall-map of 1554. It has its weaknesses: Iceland is much too close to Norway, and the Mediterranean—following the Ptolemaic tradition—is still about 10° too long. But the world would have conveyed to European merchants and statemen at least a working likeness of the continent. |
| England and Wales (Image 2) |
 The edition of 1573 was the first to contain this map of England and Wales, sent to Ortelius by his Welsh friend Humphrey Lluyd in 1568. This example is delightfully colored, in a way which brings out the main towns and ranges of hills. Note how schematically Ireland is indicated—like most cartographers of his age, Ortelius sometimes give a very rough approximation of areas outside the main focus of the map’s interest. Note, too, the absence of any indication of latitude or longitude, a common feature of the maps of Ortelius. |
| Prussia (Image 3) |
 The map of Prussia for the 1570 edition had been a rather feeble effort, squashed into a vertical frame which did not suit its shape. For the 1576 and later editions, Ortelius called on this fine map by Gaspar Henneberger. It was later used by Hondius and Blaeu. This copy, with its fine coloring, picks out not only wooded areas, but also great cities like Königsberg (now Kaliningrad in Poland) and Danzig (Gdansk). More accurately known as East Prussia, this area was soon to be united with Brandenburg to form the nucleus around which Germany would be unified. |
| Hainault (Image 4) |
 From 1579 onwards, Ortelius included in his Theatrum this fine delineation of Hainault by Jacques Surhon, of Mons. It shows a section of what is now northeastern France and southwestern Belgium, with Cambai in the bottom left-hand corner and the rivers Scarpe and Sambre forming the main hydrographic features; it is a good example of a relatively large-scale topographical map of the period. Surhon, about whom little is known, was active in drawing maps of this and adjoining areas between about 1548 and 1577. |
| Kingdom of Prester John (Image 5) |
 This map of Africa is included in editions after 1572, and brings out some of Ortelius’ shortcomings as a cartographer. Mercator had given a much better delineation of southern Africa in his world map of 1569 (which Ortelius followed in other maps) and had also established the shape of West Africa, here obscured by the cartouche. Of course, it may be argued that Ortelius was chiefly interested in the northeastern area, where Prester John’s legendary kingdom was thought to lie somewhere in Ethiopia, and the eccentricities in the center of Africa would feature on maps for many years to come. |
| America (Image 6) |
 This fine map of the New World appeared in the first edition of the Theatrum, and was used until the 1587 edition. Its version of the west coast of South America is, of course, very inaccurate, and its shows an impressive land-mass in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But the general appearance of North America is well brought out, with California shown correctly as a peninsula. The Saint Lawrence is given due prominence, but as yet nothing was known either of the Great Lakes or of the Mississippi. |
| References |
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L. Bagrow, A. Ortelii Catalogus Cartographorum. Gotha: J. Perthes, 1928-30. Reprinted in Acta Cartographica, vol. 27 (1981). Biographies, with lists of maps, of the cartographers cited by Ortelius. J.H. Hessels, Abraham Ortelii … et Virorum Eruditorum … Epistulae. Cambridge, 1887. C. Koeman, The History of Abraham Ortelius and his ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’. New York: American Elsevier, 1964. R.A. Skelton, introduction to the reprint ed., Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Antwerp, 1570. Amsterdam: N. Israel, 1964. |