Terran Sancta

Very fine example of Ortelius’s second map of the Holy Land published in the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first printed atlas from 1584 onwards. 

In his revision of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum in 1584, Ortelius decided to add a new map of the Holy Land to his atlas. He used a new nine sheet wall map of the country by Christian Sgrooten published in 1570 as his new source. Sgrooten used information gathered by the Dutch astronomer Petrus Laicksteen, who was reputed to have travelled to the Holy Land. As Ortelius’s first map of the Holy Land, published in 1570, is based on map of 1559 by Tileman Stella, who in turn based his map on an earlier work by Jacob Ziegler first issued in 1532 and much of that combined information in turn was based on Biblical sources, it is very likely that Ortelius felt that a more contemporaneous source deserved a new map within his atlas.

Ortelius adapted Sgrooten’s map but had to make several changes. He reduced its size dramatically as the source was a nine sheet wall map; hence he could not include a large inset present on the larger map; however, this inset illustrated the route of the Exodus and that information was already present on his earlier map based on Stella so he most likely felt that information was redundant. Most dramatically, he also changed the orientation, with the north pointing to the left of the sheet, stretching from Berithus (Beirut) to Gaza.

Aesthetically, it could be argued that this map is not quite as dramatic as Ortelius’ earlier map of Palestine, although there is a large vignette of Jonah and the whale on the lower left corner while the cartouche on the upper right bears miniature Biblical scenes from the New Testament.

 This map continued to be present in the Theatrum until its last edition of 1612. This example is the 1595 edition with Latin text on the reverse and outstanding original colour. Image of reverse available on request. [MEAST4664]