Antique Map of the Region of Basel (Switzerland) by Ortelius (c.1578)

Description: Antique print titled 'Basiliensis territorii descriptio nova'. Old map of the Basel region, Switzerland. Originates from 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum' by A. Ortelius. 

Artists and Engravers: Published by A. Ortelius after S. Munster. Abraham Ortelius (1527 -1598) was a Flemish cartographer, cosmographer, geographer and publisher and a contemporary of Gerard Mercator, with whom he travelled through Italy and France. Although it is Mercator who first used the word "Atlas" as a name for a collection of maps, it is Ortelius who is remembered as the creator of the first modern atlas. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum was the first systematically collated set of maps by different map makers in a uniform format. Three Latin editions as well as a Dutch, French and German edition of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum were published by 1572 and a further 25 editions printed before Ortelius' death in 1598. Several more were subsequently printed until around 1612. Ortelius is said to have been the first person to pose the question of the continents once being a single land mass before separating into their current positions.