Europae

Beautiful old coloured map of Europe by Abraham Ortelius. Decorated with a sailing ship, compass rose and tents in Russia. The title cartouche shows Europa, the mother of King Minos of Crete, sitting on Zeus in the form of a bull. From the Latin edition of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1584, Latin text on verso.

Lower centrefold backed, some soiling in lower right corner. Very good condition with stunning old colours.

Abraham Ortelius was born 1527 in Antwerp. He studied mathematics, Greek and Latin and travelled a lot across Europe. He established a business in dealing with books and drawing maps. His first remarkable map was a 8 sheet world map in the year 1564, but only three copies have survived. In 1570 he issued the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern Atlas with uniformly sized maps in a systematic collection. The term Atlas was not used until Mercator introduced it 20 years later. Most of the maps in Theatrum have been engraved by Frans Hogenberg. At the time of publication, the atlas was the most expensive book ever printed. Nevertheless it was a big success and around 7000 copies have been printed until 1612 in many editions and six different languages. Beside the Theatrum, Ortelius compiled a series of historical maps and published it in the Parergon Theatri which was bound with the Theatrum from 1579 onwards or published separately.