Abraham Ortelius (4 or 14 April 1527 – 28 June 1598) was a cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer from Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. He is recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World). Along with Gemma Frisius and Gerardus Mercator, Ortelius is generally considered one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of cartography and geography. He was a notable figure of this school in its golden age (approximately 1570s–1670s) and an important geographer of Spain during the age of discovery. The publication of his atlas in 1570 is often considered as the official beginning of the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography. He was the first person proposing that the continents were joined before drifting to their present positions.
Ortelius's observations of continental juxtaposition and his proposal of rupture and separation went unnoticed until the late 20th century. However, they were repeated in the 18th and 19th centuries (for example, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini) and later by Alfred Wegener, who published his hypothesis of continental drift in 1912 and in following years. Because his publications were widely available in German and English and because he adduced geological support for the idea, Wegener is credited by most geologists as the first to recognize the possibility of continental drift. Frank Bursley Taylor (in 1908) was also an early advocate of continental drift. During the 1960s geophysical and geological evidence for seafloor spreading at mid-oceanic ridges became increasingly compelling to geologists (e.g. Harry H. Hess, 1960) and finally established continental drift as an ongoing global mechanism (e.g. by the work of W. Jason Morgan by 1967 and Dan McKenzie in 1968). After more than three centuries, Ortelius's supposition of continental drift was vindicated.
An excerpt from, "The World Map as an Emblem: Abraham Ortelius and the Stoic Contemplation" By Lucia Nuti, Imago Mundi, 2003:
Although the close association of word and image in medieval cartography is widely acknowledged, the significance of the relationship after the rediscovery of Ptolemy's Geography and throughout the Renaissance has been overlooked, despite Abraham Ortelius's choice of the term 'Reader for users of the Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570). In this paper, the map of the world, which (as in Ptolemy's Geography) opens Ortelius's Theatrum, is analysed to show how Ortelius's concept of space was very different from Ptolemy's. Attention is drawn to the content of the texts on the map, to Ortelius's notion of geography as the eye of history, and to the importance in the Renaissance of the emblem as a conceit, or device, in the system of acquisition and transmission of knowledge. As in emblems, the words on Ortelius's map are not there to explain or to comment on what is seen but to give the image meaning: the purpose of the map is to invite contemplation of God's world. The map is contradictory, however, for Ortelius's accurate and up-to-date presentation of the physical world is qualified by a verbal statement that the world is 'nothing". a mere pinpoint in the immensity of the universe. It is concluded that Ortelius was not a geographer in the same way Ptolemy was, and that Ortelius was using geography as a philosopher and his world map as an illustration of his moral and religious thinking.
Video Title: Ortelius' Typus Orbis Terrarum and Stoicism. Source: Matthew Oliver Carter. Date Published: May 15, 2020. Description:
A video about Abraham Ortelius’ map the Typus Orbis Terrarum. This is an examination of the map in context of the Dutch Revolt, Stoicism, and Ortelius' quotes from antiquity.
