SÖK KARTOGRAFER, GRAVÖRER M.FL.

ORTELIUS (ORTELS, WORTELS), ABRAHAM.

1527-98. Född och död i Antwerpen.
Belgisk kartograf. Efter studier i grekiska, latin och matematik började han i 20-årsåldern som karthandlare. Först 1564 offentliggjorde han sitt första självständiga arbete, en världskarta på 8 blad (idag endast känt i ett exemplar). Ett antal mindre specialkartor utkom senare och 1570 lade han fram sitt främsta verk, 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum' som betecknar en epok i kartografins historia. Det var den första systematiskt utarbetade kartsamlingen baserad på samtida forskningsresultat. Flera av den tidens främsta geografer var hans medarbetare. Första utgåvan av 'Theatrum' innehöll 70 kartor på 53 blad. Härtill kom under åren 1573-95, 5 supplement med totalt 108 kartor. Ortelius atlas trycktes redan första året i 4 utgåvor. Till 1612 utkom inte mindre än 43 folioutgåvor med text på 7 olika språk. Dessutom trycktes 31 utgåvor i förminskat format under åren 1576-1697. De historiska kartorna samlades i en egen atlas, 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Paregon; sive veteris Geographiae Tabulae' som även den kom i flera uppl...
Bland arbeten.
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Paregon; sive veteris Geographiae Tabulae.
Catalogus auctorum.

1570 Theatrum Orbis Terrarum 1570-1612 Between these years the Theatrum was re-issued in 42 editions with 5 supplements with text in Latin, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Italian and English. The English edition was published in 1606 by John Norton, the maps being printed in Antwerp and the text added in London. Three years after Ortelius died in 1598, his heirs transferred publication rights to Jan Baptiste Vrients who produced the later editions until he died in 1612

1577-85 Spiegel der Werelt (8vo) Maps from the Theatrum, reduced in size, engraved by Philip Galle: text by Pieter Heyns. 6 editions with Dutch, French and Latin text. 1588-i 603 Epitome theatri orbis terrarum (12mo/8v0) 11 further editions of the smaller maps with an increasing number of maps with text also in Italian and English (1603). i6oi-i 2 7 further editions with improved engravings by Arsenius Brothers: text by Michel Coignet in Latin, French, German, Italian and English (1603). 1598-1724 Theatro del Mondo (4t0/12mo/24mo) 8 editions with Italian text; plates engraved in Italy.

1579-1606 Parergon Theatri The number of maps included in the Parergon increased from 4 in 1579 to 43 in 1606 with text in Latin, French, Italian, German and English (1606) 1624 Re-issued in Antwerp as a separate publication by Balthasar Moretus. This edition included a reproduction of the Peutinger table.

Bagrow.Sveriges sjökartor – A. Hedin.

Waesbergen, Johannes Janssonius van.

fl. 1661-81 (JAN JANSSON'S HEIRS)
Van Waesbergen, established as a bookseller in Amsterdam, acquired by inheritance from his father-in-law Jan Jansson many of Jansson's plates including those of the Atlas Minor, the Civitates Orbis Terrarum and the Atlas of the Antique World. These works were republished by him, or after his death in 1681 by his son, also named Johannes. For a time he was associated with Moses Pitt in the abortive attempt in 1680-81 to publish an English version of the major atlases by Blaeu and Jansson.

Schouten, Willem Cornelis.

1567-1625 JACOB LE MAIRE d. 1617
The voyage of Schouten/Le Maire in the years 1615-17 was one of the most important in the seventeenth century; they were the first to sail round Cape Horn (named after their home town Hoorn in Holland), disproving the long held theory that Tierra del Fuego r L'Ardante ou Flamboyante Colomne de Ia was part of a southern continent.
Subsequent accounts of the voyage, with maps, were L Colom de la Mer Mediterannee published by Schouten (1618) and Le Maire (posthumously, 1662)

Amiral Häggs flaggkarta. - Stockholm 1888.

S. imperium Romano-Germanicum oder Teutschland. - N. Visscher, ca 1700.

NICOLAUS GERMANUS.

Often called 'Donis' from a misapprehension of the title 'Donnus' or 'Donus' an abbreviated form of 'Dominus.
A fifteenth-century cartographer, place of birth, and date of birth and death unknown. The first allusion to him of authentic date is an injunction of Duke Borso d'Este (15 March, 1466) to his referendary and privy counselor, Ludovico Casella, at Ferrara, to have the 'Cosmographia of Don Nicolò' thoroughly examined and then to determine a recompense for it. The duke, on the thirtieth of the same month, called upon his treasurers for 100 florins in gold 'to remit as a mark of his appreciation to Donnus Nicolaus Germanus for his excellent book entitled 'Cosmographia''. On 8 April, 1466, the duke again drew thirty golden florins to present to the Rev. Nicolaus, who 'in addition to that excellent Cosmography' (ultra illud excellens Cosmographie opus) had dedicated to the duke a calendar made to cover many years to come ('librum tacuini multorum annorum'). The 'Cosmographia' as preserved in the Bibliotheca Estensis at Modena comprises a Latin translation of the Geography of Ptolemy with maps. The version of the geographical text is substantially the same as that dedicated in 1410 to Pope Alexander V by Jacopo Angelo, a Florentine. In the execution of the maps, however, Nicolaus, instead of adhering to the flat projection of Ptolemy, chose what is known as the 'Donis-projection', because first worked out by him, in which the parallels of latitude are equi- distant, but the meridians are made to converge towards the pole. He likewise introduced new modes in delineating the outlines of countries and oceans, mountains and lakes, as well as in the choice of cartographic proportions. He reduced the awkward size to one which was convenient for use; the obscure and often unattractive mode of presentation he replaced by one both tasteful and easily intelligible; he endeavored to revise obsolete maps in accordance with later information and to supplement them with new maps. While his first recension embraced only the twenty-seven maps of Ptolemy (one map of the world, ten special maps of Europe, four of Africa, twelve of Asia), the second comprised thirty (including in addition modern maps of Spain, Italy, and the Northern countries: Sweden, Norway, and Greenland). The last-named enlarged recension he dedicated as priest to Pope Paul II (1464-71). He dedicated to the same pontiff his third recension, containing thirty-two maps, adding modern maps of France and the Holy Land. The works of the German cartographer were of great value in diffusing the knowledges of Ptolemy's Geography. The first recension, probably the very copy in the Lenox Library (New York), is the basis of the Roman editions of Ptolemy bearing the dates 1478, 1490, and 1507; on the third, certainly the copy preserved in Wolfegg Castle, are based the Ulm editions of 1482 and 1486. By combining the Roman and Ulm editions Waldseemüller produced the maps of Ptolemy in the Strasburg edition of 1513, which was frequently copied. The modern map of the Northern countries, made by Claudius Clavus, which Nicolaus embodied in his second recension of Ptolemy, was perhaps the source of the Zeni map which had such far-reaching influence, and likewise of the maritime charts of the Canerio and Cantino type. The revised map of the Northern countries in the third recension of Nicolaus, which placed Greenland north of the Scandinavian Peninsula, was a powerful factor in cartography for a century, especially as Waldseemuller gave the preference to this representation in his world and wall map of 1507, 'the baptismal certificate of America'. Because of these and other services to geography and cartography, as for example, by the revision of Buondelmonte's 'Insularium', it would be desirable to have it established whether Nicolaus was really, as I conjecture, a Benedictine father of the Badia at Florence.
(FISCHER, Nicolaus Germanus in Entdeckungen der Normannen in Amerika (Freiburg, 1902), 75-90, 113 sqq. (Eng. tr., London, 1903), 72-86, 108 sqq.)

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