By: giribet
License: Copyright, All Rights Reserved

Uploaded: 23 Jan 2018
Last Updated: 23 Jan 2018

247 megapixels
17,338 x 14,275 pixels
57.8 in X 47.6 in at 300dpi
726 pixels per inch

Fine example of Jan Baptiste Vrients map of Catalonia, which first appeared in the 1608 edition of Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas of the world. The map is based on Vrient's 6-sheet map of Catalonia, first published in 1600. Dimensions 49 x 60 cm Location: Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya Abraham Ortelius is perhaps the best known and most frequently collected of all 16th Century mapmakers. Ortelius started his career as a map engraver. In 1547 he entered the Antwerp guild of St Luke as afsetter van Karten. His early career was as a business map, and most of his journeys before 1560 were for commercial purposes. In 1560, while traveling with Gerard Mercator to Trier, Lorraine, and Poitiers, he seems to have been attracted, largely by Mercator’s influence, towards a career as a scientific geographer. From that point forward, he devoted himself to the compilation his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum(Theatre of the World), which would become the first modern atlas. In 1564 he completed his “mappemonde", an eight-sheet map of the world. The only extant copy of this great map is in the library of the University of Basle. Ortelius also published a map of Egypt in 1565, a plan of Brittenburg Castle on the coast of the Netherlands, and a map of Asia, prior to 1570. On May 20, 1570, Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum first appeared in an edition of 53 maps. By the time of his death in 1598, a total of 25 editions were published including editions in Latin, Italian, German, French, and Dutch. Later editions would also be issued in Spanish and English by Ortelius’ successors, Vrients and Plantin, the former adding a number of maps to the atlas, the final edition of which was issued in 1612. Most of the maps in Ortelius Theatrum were drawn from the works of a number of other mapmakers from around the world, a list of 87 authors is given by Ortelius himself In 1573 Ortelius published seventeen supplementary maps under the title of Additamentum Theatri Orbis Terrarum. In 1575 he was appointed geographer to the king of Spain, Philip II, on the recommendation of Arias Montanus, who vouched for his orthodoxy (his family, as early as 1535, had fallen under suspicion of Protestantism). In 1578 he laid the basis of a critical treatment of ancient geography by his Synonymia geographica (issued by the Plantin press at Antwerp and republished as Thesaurus geographicus in 1596). In 1584 he issued his Nomenclator Ptolemaicus, his Parergon (a series of maps illustrating ancient history, sacred and secular. He also aided Welser in his edition of the Peutinger Table in 1598. (Text from: https://www.raremaps.com/gallery/detail/50693/cataloniae-principatus-novissima-et-accurata-descriptio-orteliusvrients)