Abraham ortelius biography free#

He travelled extensively in Europe and is specifically known to have traveled throughout the Seventeen Provinces in southern, western, northern, and eastern Germany (e.g., 1560, 1575–1576) France (1559–1560) England and Ireland (1576) and Italy (1578, and perhaps two or three times between 15). In 1575 he was appointed geographer to the king of Spain, Philip II, on the recommendation of Arias Montanus, who vouched for his orthodoxy. Abraham remained close to his cousin Emanuel van Meteren, who would later move to London. Following the death of Ortelius's father, his uncle Jacobus van Meteren returned from religious exile in England to take care of Ortelius. In 1535, the family had fallen under suspicion of Protestantism.

Abraham ortelius biography free#

The Orthellius family were originally from Augsburg, a Free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Ortelius was born on either 4 April or 14 April 1527 in the city of Antwerp, which was then in the Habsburg Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He was the first person proposing that the continents were joined before drifting to their present positions. The publication of his atlas in 1570 is often considered as the official beginning of the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography. 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.

Along with Gemma Frisius and Gerardus Mercator, Ortelius is generally considered one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of cartography and geography. He is recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum ( Theatre of the World). Creator of the first modern atlas proposing the idea of continental driftĪbraham Ortelius ( / ɔːr ˈ t iː l i ə s/ also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels 4 or 14 April 1527 – 28 June 1598) was a Brabantian cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer.