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.
...More
Book
Meurer, Peter H.;
(1991)
Fontes cartographici Orteliani: Das Theatrum orbis terrarum von Abraham Ortelius und seine Kartenquellen
(/isis/citation/CBB000049998/)
Book
Karrow, Robert W., Jr.;
(1993)
Mapmakers of the 16th century and their maps: Bio-bibliographies of the cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570. Based on Leo Bagrow's A. Ortelii catalogus cartographorum
(/isis/citation/CBB000062073/)
Article
Broecke, Marcel van den;
(2008)
The Significance of Language: The Texts on the Verso of the Maps in Abraham Ortelius, Theatrum orbis terrarum
(/isis/citation/CBB000931595/)
Chapter
Marcel van den Broecke;
(2015)
Mercator and Ortelius: Two of a Kind?
(/isis/citation/CBB167900475/)
Chapter
Müller Hofstede, Justus;
(1993)
Landschaftskunst und neuzeitliche Kosmographie: Pieter Breugel d.Ä. und Abraham Ortelius
(/isis/citation/CBB000054600/)
Article
Mangani, Giorgio;
(1998)
Abraham Ortelius and the hermetic meaning of the cordiform projection
(/isis/citation/CBB000081273/)
Article
Sánchez Martínez, Antonio;
(2011)
Representación por imitación: el renacimiento de la Geographia de Ptolomeo y las pinturas del mundo conocido
(/isis/citation/CBB001220815/)
Article
Zuber, Mike A.;
(2011)
The Armchair Discovery of the Unknown Southern Continent: Gerardus Mercator, Philosophical Pretensions and a Competitive Trade
(/isis/citation/CBB001220183/)
Book
Roberts, Sean;
(2013)
Printing a Mediterranean World: Florence, Constantinople, and the Renaissance of Geography
(/isis/citation/CBB001253040/)
Chapter
Hankins, James;
(1992)
Ptolemy's Geography in the Renaissance
(/isis/citation/CBB000040181/)
Article
Satterley, Renae;
(2010)
The Rediscovery of Two Celestial Maps from 1537
(/isis/citation/CBB000933220/)
Chapter
Fahy, Conor;
(1993)
The Venetian Ptolemy of 1548
(/isis/citation/CBB000041251/)
Chapter
Reedijk, C.;
(1989)
The story of a fallacy: Erasmus's share in the first printed edition in Greek of Ptolemy's Geography (Basel, 1533)
(/isis/citation/CBB000035917/)
Article
(2015)
Ptolemy from Manuscript to Print: New York Public Library's Codex Ebnerianus (MS MA 97)
(/isis/citation/CBB001551609/)
Article
Joost Depuydt;
(2016)
New Letters for a Biography of Abraham Ortelius
(/isis/citation/CBB568795536/)
Chapter
Vandersmissen, Jan;
(2007)
Abraham Ortelius Vereeuwigd. Fantomen van Kunstzinnig Patriottisme en Geografie te Antwerpen op het Einde van de negentiende eeuw
(/isis/citation/CBB001024074/)
Thesis
Robey, Jessica Chiswick;
(2006)
From the City Witnessed to the Community Dreamed: The “Civitates orbis terrarum” and the Circle of Abraham Ortelius and Joris Hoefnagel
(/isis/citation/CBB001561484/)
Article
Dirk Imhof;
(2018)
The Trade in Individual Maps from Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarum after 1612
(/isis/citation/CBB253397446/)
Article
Kees Ketelaar;
(2015)
Ortelius' Brittenburg
(/isis/citation/CBB088757988/)
Book
Mangani, Giorgio;
(1998)
Il “mondo” di Abramo Ortelio: Misticismo, geografia e collezionismo nel Rinascimento dei Paesi Bassi
(/isis/citation/CBB000081274/)
Be the first to comment!