1595 Ortelius Map of Tyrolean Alps, Trieste, Istria and Environs

Borderlands of Italy, Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia.

This is an old-color 1595 Abraham Ortelius engraving from the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum featuring two Wolfgang Lazius maps: Tyrol in southern Austria and northern Italy, and the modern-day border regions of Slovenia, Italy, and Croatia. Although the maps are not contiguous, they all represent contemporary maps of western strongholds at Italy's frontiers with Austria and Croatia.

Austria Meets Italy

The beautifully engraved map at left - rich in pictorially represented mountains and forests - depicts the Tirolean Alps from Mantua and Verona in the south to the Bavarian Mildorf in the north. Its western extreme just touches the east shore of Lake Como, and it reaches east to Salzburg. The map thus includes the Lago di Garda, Innsbruck, Trento (Tridentum), Bozen (or Bolzano, here as Poczn), and the towns along the crucial Brenner Pass, linking the Holy Roman Empire with Verona.

Croatia and Slovenia

The right-hand map on this sheet focuses on the parts of Croatia abutting Italy: the border town of Gorizia appears at the left, and the map reaches as far east as the coastal city of Senj, Croatia. The northern Adriatic islands of Krk (Vegia), Rab (Arbi), and Cres (Osero) are roughly mapped. The map reaches as far north as Slovenia (Ljubljana appears with its Latin name, Labacum, and Krsko appears as Gurkfeld). Trieste (Tergestum) is easily identified at left. The map also includes the fascinating, intermittent Lake Cerknica: surrounded by mountains, the lakes, and their attendant streams communicate subterranean passages and reservoirs. In the summer, the lake drains underground and disappears. With the autumn rains the underground reservoirs are filled and discharge suddenly into the lake, inundating the surrounding country.

Publication History and Census

This map was published by Abraham Ortelius in the 1595 Latin edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, of which 500 Copies were printed. Ortelius was a keen compiler of sources: both of these maps were credited to the Viennese cartographer Wolfgang Lazius, whose maps appeared in 1561. This map appeared in the Theatrum between 1573 and 1609, and in its various printings is well-represented in institutional collections and occasionally appears on the market. That being said, the present edition is only independently cataloged in the OCLC among the holdings of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar.

Cartographers

Abraham Ortelius (April 14, 1527 - June 28, 1598) also known as Ortels, was a cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer of Brabant, active in Antwerp. He was the creator of the first modern atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and is a seminal figure in the history of cartography. Along with Gerard Mercator and Gemma Frisius, he was a founder of the Netherlandish school of cartography. His connections with Spain - culminating in his 1575 appointment as Royal Cartographer to King Phillip II of Spain - gave him unmatched access to Spanish geographical knowledge during a crucial period of the Age of Discovery. Ortelius was born in 1527 in Antwerp. In 1547 he entered the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an illuminator of maps. He began trading in books, prints, and maps, traveling regularly to the Frankfurt book and print fair, where in 1554 he met Mercator. He accompanied Mercator on journeys throughout France in 1560 and it was at this time, under Mercator's influence, that he appears to have chosen his career as a scientific geographer. His first published geographic work appeared in 1564, an eight-sheet cordiform world map. A handful of other maps preceded the 1570 publication of the first edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, which would prove to be his life work. Appearing with but 53 maps in its first edition, Ortelius' work expanded with new maps added regularly. By 1592, it had 134 maps. Many of Ortelius' maps remained the standard for nearly a century. He traveled extensively, but his genius was as a compiler, locating the best informed maps on which to base his own. His contacts throughout Europe and extending even (via the Portuguese) to the Far East were formidable. Moreover, many of his maps were based on his own scholarship, particularly his historical works. His theories of geography were particularly ahead of his time with respect to the notion of continental drift, the possibility of which he mused on as early as 1596, and which would be proven correct centuries later. In a sense his greatest achievement was his successful navigation of the religious and political violence endemic to his city throughout his adult life: The Dutch Revolt, or Eighty Years' War (1568 - 1648), fully embroiled Antwerp. Although outwardly and officially recognized as Catholic (Arias Montanus vouched for Ortelius' Catholic orthodoxy prior to his appointment as Royal Geographer), Ortelius was able to separate himself from the religious furor which characterized the war in the low countries. Ortelius showed a glimpse of himself in a letter to a friend, regarding humanist Justus Lipsius: 'I do not know whether he is an adherent of the Pope or a Calvinist, but if he has ears to hear, he will neither be one nor the other, for sins are committed on both sides'. Ortelius' own explorations of Biblical history in his maps, and the Christogram contained in his own motto, suggest him to be a religious man, but his abjuration of political religious authorities mark him as an individualist. His tombstone at St Michael's Præmonstratensian Abbey in Antwerp bears the inscription, Quietis cultor sine lite, uxore, prole. ('served quietly, without accusation, wife, and offspring.')   Further Details...

Wolfgang Lazius (October 31, 1514 – June 19, 1565) was an Austrian humanist, cartographer, historian, and physician. He was born Wolfgang Laz in Vienna, and would be trained in medicine in the University of Vienna in 1541. He did not remain a medical doctor: he would become the official historian to Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I, and curated the imperial collections. His position as historian led him to travel broadly, and to write historical works; he avidly accumulated a remarkable library, occasionally stooping to theft to do so. His maps of Austria, Bavaria, Hungary, and Greece were influential, providing source material not only to Ortelius but also to the many later mapmakers who copied the Antwerp atlas publisher.   Further Details...

Source

Ortelius, A., Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, (Antwerp: Plantin) 1595.    

Abraham Ortelius' magnum opus, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, was the world's first regularly produced atlas, which 'set the standards for later atlases ... It was the first undertaking of its kind to reduce the best available maps to an uniform format.' (Koeman) A modestly-sized work of fifty-three maps in its first edition of May 1570, it was an immediate success: there were three further editions that year, and the work remained in print for a total of 32 editions, the last of which was 1641, well after its author's 1598 death. Ortelius added to his atlas constantly, and by 1595 the Theatrum contained 147 maps. Ortelius is renowned generally as an editor, and indeed much of the Theatrum is compiled from a variety of sources: in such cases, Ortelius was scrupulous in naming his sources. But Ortelius was also a mapmaker in his own right: many of his maps are a distillation of various sources into his own work, and there were many maps - particularly in his atlas of Biblical and ancient history Parergon - which were entirely Ortelius' work. In his role as an editor, Ortelius followed in the footsteps of Munster, whose Cosmographia was, until Ortelius, the best window on the world for the curious European reader. In terms of the artistry of his maps, Ortelius oversaw the first great flourishing of copperplate engraving in the service of cartography to occur in Northern Europe. Ortelius' work provided the model for the atlases of Mercator, Hondius, Blaeu and all their progeny in the 17th century - many of whom were to produce faithful editions of Ortelius' maps in their own productions.

Condition

Very good. Slight discoloration along centerfold, other minor imperfections in margins.

References

OCLC 551926074.