In his engraved title page, he was first to summon the image of the mythical Atlas, condemned to carry the world on his shoulders. Mercator, as much a theologian as a cartographer, titled his new book Atlas, or Cosmographical Meditations upon the Creation of the Universe. For a while, Mercator walked in his young friend's shadow. By then Ortelius was the more famous of the two. It was 1585 before the aging Mercator published the first volume of his own world map in book form. Mercator himself praised Ortelius for "the faithfulness with which you bring out geographical truth." People called Ortelius a great intellectual. It sold like hot-cakes and went into one improved printing after another. He called it a Theatre of the Round World. He created the book Hooftman had asked for. Ortelius wasn't thinking in terms of books, but, with Mercator's help, he collected the best maps around. Finally, a trader named Hooftman came to Ortelius and said, in effect, "Can't you chop these bedsheets into two-foot squares and publish the map of the world in a book?" Up-to-date maps were serious business for seagoing Netherlands traders. For minor place-names to be readable, the map had to be immense. Mercator's world map had one nasty drawback. He knew good work, and he had a very high opinion of Ortelius. His own map of the world was an artistic triumph as well as an intellectual one. Mercator also saw the map as a work of art. He'd mount them on silk and render them in color. He'd decorate their borders and the empty reaches of land and sea. In 1554 he went into business buying and selling maps. Ortelius trained as an engraver - an artist/craftsman. He published a world map in that projection in 1569. He went on to become the great Renaissance mapmaker. He was an intellectual, a mathematician, and an innovator. Mercator, born in 1512, was older by 15 years. They were Gerardus Mercator and Abraham Ortelius. To see how it came into being, let's meet two Flemish friends. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. Ortelius's small Atlas The Epitome published from 1590 ran for many editions and was very popular.Today, we make maps into a user-friendly information system. with many newly prepared maps began to supersede Ortelius' work. Publication reverted to the Plantin Press, under the control of the Moretus brothers, from 1612.Īlthough only the relatively unsuccessful atlases of De Jode and, ultimately, Mercator were published during the sixteenth century life of the Theatrum …, in 1607 Jodocus Hondius's issue of Mercator's Atlas. Between 16 it was published by Johann Baptist Vrients, who added a variety of fine maps including the very decorative large plates of England and Wales, and of Ireland. Amongst this latter category, the maps added in the 1580's and 90's of the world, the Americas, China, the Pacific, Japan, Peru and Florida, and Iceland are important historically and justly famous.The maps themselves are finely engraved, often very decorative and generally found with text on the reverse.Īfter Ortelius' death in 1598 the atlas continued to be printed and published by the Plantin Press. Marcel Van Den Broecke, whose fascinating work on Ortelius and his maps is often quoted, estimates that around 7300 complete atlases were published using a total of 234 copperplates, either replacements or reworkings as plates became out-dated, worn, or as new information became available. Over 30 different editions, with text in Latin, French, Dutch, German, Italian, English or Spanish, testify to the popularity and esteem attributed to the work. It was also an immediate commercial success, being reprinted four times in 1570. The atlas achieved instant fame as "the world's first regularly produced atlas" (Skelton), being the first atlas with maps prepared to a uniform format. Having already become probably the greatest cartographic bibliographer of the period, Ortelius was able to prepare 53 map sheets based on the most up-to-date information, which were engraved by Frans Hogenberg, and first published in 1570. At this time, Ortelius also began preparing his greatest project, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. From about 1560, possibly as a result of his friendship with Mercator, Ortelius began to produce maps - an eight sheet world map being the earliest.
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