![]() ![]() Lusitania was a province of the Roman Empire, comprising most of modern Portugal and part of Spain. The text in the large cartouche offers a rudimentary itinerary for sailors from Lusitania to Calechut (Calicut, India), describing a route which essentially avoids Africa. Strangely, this loop disappeared from subsequent maps of Africa for the next two hundred years. Actually, this is the true route of the Niger River, but that fact will not be confirmed until the Lander brothers’ expedition in 1830. One of the intriguing aspects of this map is the loop of the Senegal River, which is shown entering the ocean in today’s Gulf of Guinea. A simplified caravel, similar to those used by the Portuguese (and Columbus), sails off the southern coast. Few coastal towns are noted, and there is no Madagascar yet. Several kingdoms are noted, including that of the legendary Prester John, as well as “Meroë,” the mythical tombs of the Nubian kings. The source of the Nile lies in two lakes fed by waters from the fabled Mountains of the Moon, graphically presented as small brown mounds. The Niger River begins and ends in lakes. The map of Africa contains many interesting-if not curious- features: a one-eyed giant seated over Nigeria and Cameroon, representing the mythical tribe of the “Monoculi” a dense forest located in today’s Sahara Desert and an elephant filling southern Africa. Münster was the first mapmaker to print separate maps of the four then known continents (Europe, Africa, Asia, America). By soliciting descriptions and maps from German scholars and foreigners, he was able over time to include up-to-date information in the various editions of his atlases, becoming the most influential cartographer of the mid-16th century. ![]() Münster was a professor of Hebrew at Heidelberg and then at Basel, where he settled in 1529 and later died of the plague. Because it was issued with some variations in both of Münster’s very popular works, Geographia (1540-1552) and Cosmographia (1544-1628), the map is difficult to date precisely. The earliest obtainable map of the whole continent of Africa. From Münster’s Cosmographia uniuersalis (Basel, 1554). Over thirty editions of this Epitome were published in different languages.“Totius Africæ tabula, & descriptio uniuersalis, etiam ultra Ptolemæi limites extensa.” Woodcut map, with added color, 26 x 35 cm. In 1577, engraver Philip Galle and poet-translator Pieter Heyns published the first pocket-sized edition of the Theatrum, the Epitome. The number of map sheets grew from 53 in 1570 to 167 in 1612 in the last edition. Editions were published in Dutch, German, French, Spanish, English, and Italian. Some 24 editions appeared during Ortelius's lifetime and another ten after his death in 1598. Nothing was like it until Mercator's atlas appeared twenty-five years later. The importance of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum for geographical knowledge in the last quarter of the sixteenth century is difficult to overemphasize. The Parergon can be called a truly original work of Ortelius, who drew the maps based on his research. Later editions included Additamenta (additions), resulting in Ortelius' historical atlas, the Parergon, mostly bound together with the atlas. This first edition contained seventy maps on fifty-three sheets. It was one of the most expensive books ever published. ![]() ![]() He completed the atlas in 1569, and in May of 1570, the Theatrum was available for sale. In 1568 the production of individual maps for his atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was already in full swing. In 1565 he published a map of Egypt and a map of the Holy Land, a large map of Asia followed. The inspiration for this map may well have been Gastaldi's large world map. In 1564 he published his first map, a large and ambitious world wall map. In addition, he travelled a lot and visited Italy and France, made contacts everywhere with scholars and editors, and maintained extensive correspondence with them. Luke as an "illuminator of maps." Besides colouring maps, Ortelius was a dealer in antiques, coins, maps, and books, with the book and map trade gradually becoming his primary occupation.īusiness went well because his means permitted him to start an extensive collection of medals, coins, antiques, and a library of many volumes. He learned Latin and studied Greek and mathematics.Ībraham and his sisters Anne and Elizabeth took up map colouring. The maker of the 'first atlas', the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570), was born on 4 April 1527 into an old Antwerp family. ![]()
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