Abraham Ortelius

Abraham Ortelius (also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; * 4 or April 14, 1527 in Antwerp, † June 28, 1598 ) was a Flemish geographer and cartographer.

Life

Ortelius comes from an immigrant of Augsburg in the southern Netherlands family. He first studied with his uncle Jacob van Meteren and then on his own initiative Greek, Latin and mathematics in Antwerp. Ortelius was first card and booksellers, but also trained in cartographers.

According to John Vermeulen Ortelius has worked with his contemporary Gerhard Mercator.

Works

On May 20, 1570 edition of Theatrum Orbis his first Terrarum, the first collection of maps in book form appeared. Atlases that time wore not the name. This collection was published in 1570-1612 in 42 editions and in 7 languages: Latin, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, English and Italian. Unlike his colleagues, he clearly referenced the sources of his maps and texts. The work will include an illustration of the known world until 1492 and could be obtained at the time of mapping in retrospect.

Furthermore, frequently referenced a map of Ortelius with Europe, Mediterranean, North Africa and Arabia in focus from 1601 ( other estimates: 1603-1612 ) came from. It is entitled Geographia sacra ( sacred geography) and also contains a reduced, embedded world map. The detailed entries were primarily made ​​for the Levant and Mesopotamia, so with those mentioned in the Bible places the way to attempt to fix places from the biblical paradise description. The mere presentation of the rivers in Mesopotamia it turns out rather inaccurate. The work exists in several versions with varying text fields and was often colored. It was recorded among others in the historic Atlas of Joan Janssonius (1652 or 1662), which is typical here should act to manual copies of the original artwork, according to experts.

Furthermore, a world map in page size is from 1612 under the title " Orbis Terrarum type " (original Latin Typvs Orbis Terrarvm ) obtained from the cartographers in moderate quantities.

Another notable work is his collection of place names Thesaurus Geographicus dar.

Importance for the tectonics

Ortelius is now regarded as the first, the supposed basis of the matching outlines that the continents had once been related and were later broken by " earthquakes and floods ," said that this was once America, Africa and Europe have emerged. The thesis fills only a short passage of his work " Thesaurus Geographicus " and is considered by experts as the first written evidence of the foundations of the theories of continental drift and plate tectonics of the resulting who could factually established until the 20th century.