A Rare Early Edition of Abraham Ortelius’s Map of North Africa.
BARBARIAE ET BILEDVLGERID, NOVA DESCRIPTIO.
$475
1 in stock
Description
When Abraham Ortelius published Theatrum Orbis Terrarum in Antwerp in 1570, it became the first systematically organized, uniform-format collection of maps of the world and the foundational work of the modern atlas tradition. This map of North Africa, Barbariae et Biledvlgerid Nova Descriptio, appeared in that first edition and continued through dozens of subsequent Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, and English editions over the following decades. The present example belongs to the 1575 Latin edition, one of the rarest Latin Theatrum issues, and is a notably early impression of the plate.
The Map in Detail
The map covers the entire North African Mediterranean littoral from the Atlantic coast of Morocco to the borders of Egypt, extending southward into the central Sahara. “Barbaria” designates the Barbary Coast, the great arc of Mediterranean Africa encompassing Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania. “Biledvlgerid” (from the Arabic Bilad al-Jarid, Land of the Date Palms) refers to the Saharan interior to the south. Across the top of the sheet, the Mediterranean opens northward to reveal southern Spain (Castile, Valencia, Granada, Aragon), the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, and the Italian coast as far as Genoa and Venice.
The map is rich with textual annotation, a hallmark of Ortelius’s humanist approach. A note west of Gibraltar identifies the Golfo de las Yeguas (Gulf of the Mares), citing Fernandez de Oviedo on the legend of drowned mares. Descriptions of Saharan peoples and places fill the interior: the salt mines of Tegazza; the lake of Zis surrounded by uninhabited dunes; the ostrich-eating inhabitants of Guargala; the Azanaga people who cover their mouths out of modesty. At lower right, a marginal note explains the ancient extent of the name “Barbaria,” encompassing all of what was once Mauritania and Lesser Africa.
Historical Context
Ortelius based this map on sources ultimately traceable to the Venetian cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi, via an anonymous Venetian intermediary of around 1560. This was the best available geographical intelligence on North Africa at the time. The region drew acute European interest: the Barbary states controlled Mediterranean trade and piracy, the Ottoman Empire had extended its reach across much of the coast, and Spain and Portugal were locked in competition for Atlantic and North African footholds. Ortelius synthesized the best available knowledge and presented it within the standardized, annotated format that made the Theatrum the reference atlas of its age.
Publication History and Census
Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598) published Theatrum Orbis Terrarum in Antwerp in 1570, the year generally recognized as the birth of the modern atlas. This map, Ort 176 in the standard census, appeared in all major Theatrum editions from 1570 through 1641. The present example is from the 1575 Latin edition (page 69), one of the smallest print runs in the atlas’s history. It is in State 176.1, the original and unaltered state of the plate, before modifications to the sea monster’s tail, the ship, and the coastal stippling made during or after 1581.
Cartographer(s):
Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) was born in Antwerp to Flemish parents in 1527. After studying Greek, Latin, and mathematics, he and his sister set up shop as book dealers and a ‘painter of maps.’ In his heart, Ortelius was, nevertheless, first and foremost a historian. He believed geography was the ‘eye of history,’ which explains why he collected maps and historical documents with such passion. Ortelius traveled widely in pursuit of his interests, building contacts with mapmakers and literati all over the European continent.
Ortelius reached a turning point in his career in 1564 with the publication of a World Map in eight sheets, of which only a single copy survives. In 1570, he published a comprehensive collection of maps titled Theatrum orbis terrarum (Theatre of the World). The Theatrum is conventionally considered the first modern-style atlas. It was compiled by collecting maps and charts from colleagues across the continent, which Ortelius then had engraved in a uniform size and style. The engraver for most of the maps in Theatrum was none other than the famous Frans Hogenberg, who also served as the main engraver for the 16th-century urban atlas Civitates Orbis Terrarum, published with Georg Braun in 1572.
Hogenberg’s re-drawn and standardized maps formed the basis of the first atlas in history (even though it was Mercator who was the first to use the term a few decades later). Unlike many of his contemporaries, Ortelius noted his sources openly and in the first edition, acknowledged no less than eighty-seven different European cartographers. This ‘catalogus auctorum tabularum geographicum‘ is one of the major innovations of his atlas. The list of contributing mapmakers was kept up-to-date for decades after Ortelius’ death. In the first edition of 1570, this list included 87 names, whereas the posthumous edition of 1603 contained no less than 183 names.
While compiled by Abraham Ortelius in the manner described above, the Theatrum was first printed by Gielis Coppens van Diest, an Antwerp printer experienced with cosmographical books. Van Diest was succeeded by his son Anthonis in 1573, who in turn was followed by Gillis van den Rade, who printed the 1575 edition of Ortelius’ atlas. From 1579, Christoffel Plantin took over, and his successors continued to print Theatrum until Ortelius’ heirs sold the copperplates and the publication rights to Jan Baptist Vrients in 1601. In 1612, shortly after Vrients’s death, the copperplates passed to the Moretus brothers.
Condition Description
Good. uneven toning in bottom margin.
References
Van den Broecke, Ort 176; van der Krogt 8610:31; Koeman/Meurer 53; Karrow 1/75.
