“The most complete” printing of the Ortelius Atlas (Theatrum orbis

“The most complete” printing of the Ortelius Atlas by the father of modern atlas-making. ORTELIUS, Abraham (1527–1598). Theatrum orbis terrarum -- Abrahami Ortelii Theatri Orbis terrarum parergon; sive veteris geographiæ tabulæ, Commentarijs Geographicis et Historicis illustratæ. Editio novissima, Tabulis aliquot aucta, et variè emendata atq[ue] innovata, cura et studio Balthasaris Moreti -- Nomenclator ptolemaicus; omnia locorum vocabula quæ in tota Ptolemæi Geographia occurrunt, complectens: ad fidem Græci codicis purgatus; & in ordinem non minus vtilem quàm elegantem digestus. Theatrum orbis terrarum bound with Abrahami Ortelii Theatri Orbis terrarum parergon; sive veteris geographiæ tabulæ, Commentarijs Geographicis et Historicis illustratæ. Editio novissima, Tabulis aliquot aucta, et variè emendata atq[ue] innovata, cura et studio Balthasaris Moreti. Antwerp: Officina Plantiniana, 1624. and with Nomenclator ptolemaicus; omnia locorum vocabula quæ in tota Ptolemæi Geographia occurrunt, complectens: ad fidem Græci codicis purgatus; & in ordinem non minus vtilem quàm elegantem digestus. Antwerp: Officina Plantiniana/Balthasar Moretus, 1624. Folio (18 1/8” x 11 3/4”, 461mm x 298mm): A6(–A2)B-C6 D-E4 1-1282, *4 i-xlix2; 2A-B6 2C6(–2C6) [6s $4 signed, 4s $3 signed, 2s $1 signed; –A1, 2A1]. Theatrum with an engraved title-page, engraved epitaph of Ortelius, full-page portrait of Ortelius by Philippe Galle and 128 double-page map-sheets, each with text verso; all colored by hand. Parergon with an engraved title-page (and the full-page engraved arms of Philip III of Spain verso) and 44 double-page map-sheets, each with text verso; all colored by hand. Theatrum and Parergon unpaginated; Nomenclator pp. 1-2 3-32, [2] (approbation, colophon). With 176 plates, of which 172 are double-page map-sheets, all with contemporary hand-color. Bound in modern panelled calf (with contemporary calf laid down to the center of the boards by Trevor Lloyd (signed at the upper edge of the recto of the rear free end-paper)). On the spine, 6 raised bands. Author and title gilt to vellum in the second panel. Gilt fillet to the edges of the boards. All edges of the text-block gilt. Re-bound (with contemporary covers embedded into the boards) by Trevor Lloyd. Lacking A2 of the Theatrum (dedication to Philip II, prefatory verses) and C6 of the Nomenclator (printer’s device, blank). Map 83 (Bologna, “Territorium, et Civitas Bononiensis”) laid down on the text-sheet. Pigment oxidation visible throughout, indicating original color. Some marginal tears, of which some have been amateurishly repaired. Mild marginal dampstaining A1-A4 and to the Parergon and Nomenclator. Pasted oval slips with ink MS to the title-page of the Parergon (upper: “Geographia Historiæ oculus,” lower: “f. Ioannes Van Rÿckenroÿ./ Antuerp Relig: Camberõn:/ Inuidiam Virtute repelle.”). Ink marginalia with some underlining in a XVIIc hand throughout. Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598) is the father of modern atlas-making; he was the first to gather maps of a regular format systematically into a comprehensive book. From the first edition of the Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570, Theater of the world), Ortelius himself drew or re-drew the maps; unlike most cartographers (before or since) he was explicit in his source material. The Catalogus auctorum, the list of sources for his maps, has in the present edition grown to 183 names from 87 initially. Beyond the maps, Ortelius provides apposite text — in the present item in Latin, but he also published Dutch, German, French, Spanish and English — on the verso of each map-sheet, an eminently useful idea imitated by Braun & Hogenberg and a great many others over the following centuries. The publication history of the Theatrum is nuanced, but can be simplified into five “expansions” of the original edition (issued with 53 maps): the 1573 expansion (70 maps), 1579 (93 maps), 1584 (112 maps), 1590 (134 maps) and 1595 (151 maps). The 1609 edition (of which the present example is an exact reprint except for the title-page; this has been supplied from the 1573 edition (Van der Kroegt-Koeman 31:1A.2)) is called “the most complete” (VdK-K sub 31:054) because of Plantin’s revision of five plates and the fullest complement of preliminary material. The 1579 expansion saw the introduction of the Parergon (πάρεργον, Appendix), which contains maps of antiquity, both real and fictional (the itinerary of Aeneas in Vergil’s Aeneid). The third component, the Nomenclator ptolemaicus (Ptolemy’s monitor), which is a sort of gazette of the place-names in Ptolemy’s Geography, began as part of the Theatrum but was issued separately (as the Synonomia Geographia and later the Thesaurus Geographicus) from 1578. The Nomenclator and Catalogus auctorum appear, with a few exceptions, only in Latin editions. Jan van Ryckenroy (1580–1631) was a monk trained at the Cistercian abbey of Cambron in Belgium. He was pastor at Hengstdijk, about 20 miles northwest of Antwerp. He must have come to own the book quite soon after its publication (1624); it was perhaps a gift from a parishioner. Perhaps he was also the annotator — the inscriptions on the title-page of the Parergon are in a humanist presentation hand — who quite regularly drew attention to points of interest, rather in the mode of a teacher prompting a student. Van der Kroegt-Koeman 31:055B (i.e., 31:055 plus 31:711).

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