| Method | Copper engraved with original hand colour |
| Artist | Ortelius, Abraham |
| Published | Cum Imperatoriae & Regiae Maiestatis Privilegio [Antwerp, 1587] |
| Dimensions | 370 x 480 mm |
| Notes |
A beautiful example of Ortelius' map of the western Balkans, from the 1587 French edition of the famous Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The map encompasses parts of modern day Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the southwestern parts of Hungary. Towns and cities are picked out in red, and the rest of the map is beautifully ornamented in full original hand colour. Rivers, mountains, and lakes are shown pictorially, and the title is enclosed in a simple strapwork cartouche at bottom right, above a larger decorative cartouche replicating a letter to Ortelius from his friend and colleague János Zsámboky (Johannes Sambucus), a Hungarian humanist scholar who was the court physician of Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian II. Abraham Ortelius (1527 -1598) was a Flemish cartographer, cosmographer, geographer and publisher and a contemporary of Gerard Mercator, with whom he travelled through Italy and France. Although it is Mercator who first used the word "Atlas" as a name for a collection of maps, it is Ortelius who is remembered as the creator of the first modern atlas. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was the first systematically collated set of maps by different map makers in a uniform format. Three Latin editions as well as a Dutch, French and German edition of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum were published by 1572 and a further 25 editions printed before Ortelius' death in 1598. Several more were subsequently printed until around 1612. Ortelius is said to have been the first person to pose the question of the continents once being a single land mass before separating into their current positions. Ex.Col.: László Gróf Condition: Central vertical fold as issued. Minor time toning to margins. Verdigris from early colour on verso. French letterpress text on verso. |
| Framing | unmounted |
| Price | £650.00 |
| Stock ID | 51013 |