America Map Ortelius Theatrum 1570 Poster

Set of 5 - 1/5 Americae sive Novi Orbis, Nova Descriptio Ortelius' Theatrum was perhaps the single most influential set of maps published in the 16th Century. First issued in 1570 and expanded over the next forty-two years to this final Vrients edition of Ortelius' masterwork, the Theatrum revolutionized the presentation of maps to an increasingly educated class of Renaissance Europe and became the standard from which most cartographic works of the period were copied. Abraham Ortelius is perhaps the best known and most frequently collected of all sixteenth-century mapmakers. Ortelius started his career as a map engraver. In 1547 he entered the Antwerp guild of St Luke as "afsetter van Karten". His early career was as a businessman, and most of his journeys before 1560 were for commercial purposes. In 1560, while travelling with Gerard Mercator to Trier, Lorraine, and Poitiers, he seems to have been attracted, largely by Mercator’s influence, towards a career as a scientific geographer. From that point forward, he devoted himself to the compilation of his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World), which would become the first modern atlas.