Size: 34 x 51 cm (in light passe-partout)
Published in Antwerp 1570
Biography
Abraham Ortelius was a prominent Flemish cartographer, historian and map publisher. An engraver by training, he ran his own book and antiquarian business at the beginning of his career. Around 1560 he became interested in mapmaking. Within a decade, he produced a number of outstanding cartographic works, such as a series of maps on the projection of the heart (1564), and the first systematized collection of world maps - the famous work "Theatrum orbis terrarum" (1570). In 1575 Ortelius' achievements were recognized by Philip II of Habsburg himself, who appointed him court cartographer. Ortelius is considered the forerunner of the concept of continental drift, as he was the first to suggest the possibility that the continents had been connected in the past, and then fractured and gradually separated. His observations were only further developed by Alfred Wagner, who published the first systematic hypothesis of continental drift in 1912.
