Description
Decorative coloured map of Switzerland by A. Ortelius. With one cartouche and a mileage scale. Covering complete Switzerland with the Lake Constance and Lake Geneva. From the latin edition of the Ortelius Atlas published in 1574, based on Tschudi's secound map of Switzerland 1560.
Condition
Some place names marked by old hand, very good conditions.
Cartographer
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.
Images to Download
If you like to download the image of this map with a resolution of 1200 pixels, please follow the link below.
You can use this image for publication on your personal or commercial websites for free if you set a link to this website. If you need photographs with a higher resolution, please contact us.
Abraham Ortelius: Helvetiae Descriptio Aegidio Tschudo Auct..
Coloured map of Switzerland. Printed in Antwerp in the year 1574.
Switzerland - Ortelius, Abraham - Helvetiae Descriptio Aegidio Tschudo Auct.