1 The majority (266 letters) are letters to Ortelius from friends and patrons. The volume published by Hessels in 1887 consists of 376 letters in total. His extensive correspondence and his Album amicorum, which constitute the primary sources for his life and work, provide detailed evidence for a network that in England alone included William Camden, whose Britannia was undertaken at Ortelius’s urging, Richard Hakluyt the elder, the naturalist Thomas Penny, the puritan controversialist William Charke, and Humphrey Llwyd, who provided Ortelius with the map of England and Wales published in the 1573 edition of the latter’s Theatrum.Īs Joost Depuydt’s work with Ortelius continues over the coming years, and as scattered letters are located, this catalogue will be augmented and expanded, and transcriptions and manuscript images will be added as these become available. Conversant in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, Ortelius became one of the leading humanists of the Low Countries and was in communication with a large number of European intellectuals of his time. Written both to and from Ortelius they are predominantly in Latin, with a handful in Dutch, French, Italian, and Portuguese. The 467 letters contained in this catalogue at present range in date from 1556 to June 1598. The metadata for this correspondence was supplied to EMLO by Joost Depuydt, of the FelixArchief, Antwerp, who collated it in the course of his research on Ortelius (see ‘New letters for a biography of Abraham Ortelius’, listed below).Ĭultures of Knowledge would like to thank two EMLO interns: first Charlotte Marique for her work to help prepare and collate metadata published in the Hessels volume for upload to the union catalogue, and secondly Marc Kolakowski for his work on the people and place records for the letters not included in the Hessels edition.Ībrahami Ortelii (geographi Antverpiensis) et virorum eruditorum ad eundem et ad Jacobum Colium Ortelianum (Abrahami Ortelii sororis filium) epistulae, cum aliquot aliis epistulis et tractatibus quibusdam ab utroque collectis (1524–1628), ex autographis mandante Ecclesia Londino-Batava, ed. Ortelius himself remained single and lived in Antwerp with his unmarried sister Anne and his mother. Ortelius remained a lifelong friend of his cousin, Emanuel van Meteren (the son of his guardian uncle, Jacob), who settled in London, and who was joined there following her marriage to Jacob Cole by Ortelius’s sister Elizabeth and her eldest son, Jacobus Colius Ortelianus (1563–1628). Despite being considered more of a map editor than an original cartographer, Ortelius was created ‘his majesty’s geographer’ to Philip II in 1573. He published in 1570 what is often described as the first modern atlas, the Theatrum orbis terrarum, a publication with the distinction of being the most expensive book brought out in the second half of the sixteenth century. After entering the Guild of Saint Luke in 1547 as a map illuminator, he embarked upon a career dealing in books and prints and began to attend the annual Frankfurt book fair where, in 1554, he became acquainted with Gerardus Mercator.Īn extensive traveller throughout the Low Countries, France, Italy, Germany, England, and Ireland, Ortelius began to compile and publish his own maps, starting with a wall map of the world (1564) and following this with maps of ancient Egypt (1565), Asia (1567), Spain (1570), and the Roman empire (1571). The eldest of the three children of an Antwerp merchant, from the age of ten and following his father’s death, Abraham Ortels was raised by his uncle Jacob van Meteren. (Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp source of image: Wikimedia Commons) Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598)
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