Ortelius remained a lifelong friend of his cousin, Emanuel van Meteren (the son of his guardian uncle, Jacob), who settled in London, and who was joined there following her marriage to Jacob Cole by Ortelius’s sister Elizabeth and her eldest son, Jacobus Colius Ortelianus (1563–1628). Despite being considered more of a map editor than an original cartographer, Ortelius was created ‘his majesty’s geographer’ to Philip II in 1573. He published in 1570 what is often described as the first modern atlas, the Theatrum orbis terrarum, a publication with the distinction of being the most expensive book brought out in the second half of the sixteenth century. After entering the Guild of Saint Luke in 1547 as a map illuminator, he embarked upon a career dealing in books and prints and began to attend the annual Frankfurt book fair where, in 1554, he became acquainted with Gerardus Mercator.Īn extensive traveller throughout the Low Countries, France, Italy, Germany, England, and Ireland, Ortelius began to compile and publish his own maps, starting with a wall map of the world (1564) and following this with maps of ancient Egypt (1565), Asia (1567), Spain (1570), and the Roman empire (1571). The eldest of the three children of an Antwerp merchant, from the age of ten and following his father’s death, Abraham Ortels was raised by his uncle Jacob van Meteren. (Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp source of image: Wikimedia Commons) Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598)
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