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. The map must be considered one of the gems of any private collection of maps of the region and, somewhat surprisingly, is still available for collectors at a reasonable price. It represents the synthesis of the cartographic knowledge of the region for the first seventy years of the sixteenth century and, most importantly, brought that knowledge to a vast audience through the numerous editions of the Theatrum. The map 'Indiae Orientalis Insularumque Adiacentium Typus' by Ortelius is a 'milestone' map in the cartography of Southeast Asia and the East Indian Islands. Gebe island, where the French obtained the first clove and nutmeg seedlings they smuggled out in the eighteenth century and which currently contains one of Indonesia's largest nickel mines, is correctly located on the equator between Gilolo and New Guinea. Although the 'Bird's Head' part of New Guinea (Irian Jaya) is shown as three islands, the outline of the coasts, particularly the north coast, strongly suggests that Ortelius based his information on actual charts of the coasts. Buru island is located correctly west of the main Ambon island, now called Seram. On the other hand, the clove-producing islands of Ternate, Tidore and their neighbours to the south, Machian and Bacam, are correctly located to the west of the easily identifiable island of Gilolo (Halmahera) with its four distinctive peninsulas. Borneo is mapped in the place of the fictitious 'Java Minor' that frequently appeared at that latitude on the 'modern' Ptolemaic maps of the region, although only the part of Borneo north of the equator is shown to the west of a barely recognizable Celebes (Sulawesi), where no hint is given of the very distinctive peninsula geography of the island. Java is shown as an island with a greatly inflated shape and no topographical information along the south coast, separated from Beach, a presumed peninsula on the southern or 'fifth' continent. Sumatra and Java are shown as heavily distorted together with the principal spice islands, but the emergent shape of Borneo and the Philippines is apparent, as well as the general configuration of the East Indian archipelago. The map extends from Portuguese India in the west, through China, Japan, Southeast Asia and the East Indies (Indonesian archipelago), including New Guinea, to the Northwest coast of America. This map represents a synthesis of the best readily available information on Southeast Asia and the East Indian Islands from Italian, Portuguese and Spanish sources. Old, antique map of Southeast Asia, by Abraham Ortelius.
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