Incidentally, most map coloring at this time was done by children. Real prosperity arrived with the publication, in 1570 of his atlas, and it was his sister Anne who took over the task of coloring and remained a competent colorist for the rest of her life. Ortelius was never married and lived with his sister Anna, a situation that would not change throughout his life.

He seems to have reached a very advanced level of skill in this craft, as some customers continued to insist on buying atlases colored by him personally at a time when he had already developed into a publisher and cartographer/merchant. He died on the 28th of June 1598 at the age of 71.Īt the age of 19, Abraham Ortels' name was found in the register of the guild of St Luke as 'afsetter' or colorist of maps and prints. Philip sent him a gold necklace worth one thousand ducats. He met William Camden whom he is said to have encouraged in the production of the Britannia.Ī turning point in his career was reached in 1564 with the publication of a World Map in eight sheets of which only one example is known: other individual maps followed and then - at the suggestion of a friend - he gathered together a collection of maps from contacts among European cartographers and had them engraved in uniform size and issued in 1570 as the Atlas of the Whole World.Īlthough Lafreri and others in Italy had published collections of 'modern' maps in book form in earlier years, the Theatrum was the first uniformly sized, systematic collection of maps and hence can be called the first atlas, although that term itself was not used until twenty years later by Mercator.Ībraham Ortelius became the Royal Cartographer to Philip II King of Spain. On one such visit to England, possibly seeking temporary refuge from religious persecution, Traveling widely, especially to the great book fairs, his business prospered and he established contacts with the literati in many lands. Five Maps by Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), Three 'La Florida Aue Tore Hieron Chiaues Two Guastecan Reg,' 1583, H.- 8. Later, together with his sister, he became a seller of books, prints and maps. Rather than attempting a definitive investigation of Ortelius's theology, this essay shows how Ortelius's work as a cartographer participated in the religious and political discourses of post-Reformation Europe.Abraham Ortel, better known as Ortelius was born in Antwerp and after studying Greek, Latin and mathematics started his career as a colorist of maps. This article draws on the scholarship that connects the cartographer to the Family of Love in order to argue that Ortelius's spiritual beliefs were expressed through his world maps.

This article describes the context in which Ortelius lived and worked: in Antwerp during the turbulent reign of Philip II of Spain, where he witnessed the Catholic king's repressive policies in the Low Countries. Abraham Ortelius exploited this possibility by giving his world map of 1564 the distinct shape of a lung, which evoked both a 1541 map by Gemma Frisius and, indirectly, the philosophy of the heretical anatomist and cartographer Michael Servetus. Cartography, as a highly flexible mode of representation, could encode any number of spiritual or political messages. 'Abraham Ortel, better known as Ortelius, was born. In 1570 he published the first comprehensive collection of maps of all parts of the world, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum ('Theatre of the World'), the first modern atlas as we know it. Maps have often served as tools of political propaganda, particularly in the reign of Francis I (1515–1547). Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) Abraham Ortelius is the most famous and most collected of all early cartographers.

Abraham ortelius map