Maps were used as propaganda tools by the Dutch Companies to encourage the commodification of land and for their commercial agenda.ĭuring the Age of Discovery, with their expertise in business, cartography, shipbuilding, seafaring, and navigation, the Dutch traveled to the far corners of the world.
The Dutch dominated commercial cartography during the seventeenth century through their publicly traded companies such as the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the Dutch West India Company (WIC) and the competing privately held map-making firms. Period: Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography.English: Theatre of the Orb of the World.Title Page of 1606 edition, with female figures representing the continents Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Facsimiles of his maps are also available from many specialized map retailers. Originals of Ortelius’s maps are popular collectors’ items and often sell for tens of thousands of dollars. The publication of this book of maps is considered as marking the official beginning of the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography, which lasted for about one hundred years. By the time of Ortelius’ death in 1598, there were twenty-five editions that had appeared in seven different languages.
In addition to the initial Latin version, Dutch, German and French editions were later published. The commercial success of the atlas prompted the Ortelius Theatrum to expand and improve the atlas continually. The moneyed classes which had an interest in knowledge and science became significant consumers of the convenient size and comprehensive knowledge of Ortelius’s Atlas. The title page had allegorical images with the five known continents presented by symbolic women, with Europe as the Queen. This list of cartographer’s works incorporated in the atlas grew with every edition and included no less than 183 names in 1601.Īfter the initial publication of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Ortelius regularly revised and expanded the atlas.įrom its original 70 maps and 87 bibliographic references in the first edition in 1570, the atlas grew through its 31 editions to encompass 183 references and 167 charts in 1612.Īn engraved map and colored by hand from Ortelius’s atlas Teatrum Orbis Terarum, Antwerp, 1570 In the bibliography, all the cartographers whose work was reprinted in the atlas were referenced and documented. In the Ortelius atlas, however, the maps were standardized, all similar in style and size arranged logically by continent, region, and state.
Previously, groupings of maps were only created for individual one-off orders. The atlas incorporated 53 charts from various cartography masters. Ortelius’s Atlas consisted of a collection of the best maps, refined by himself, combined into one map or split across multiple pages of the same size. Gilles Coppens de Diest from Antwerp was the original publisher, and copper printing plates were engraved explicitly for the atlas. This atlas was the first time that the entirety of Western European knowledge of the world was brought together in one book. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, which is Latin for “Theatre of the Orb of the World,” is considered to be the first real modern atlas. Compiled by Abraham Ortelius in 1570 in Antwerp, it consisted of a collection of uniform maps and supporting text bound to form a single book. Theatre of the Orb of the World – First Atlas
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