Antique Map of the region of Picardy by Ortelius (c.1602)

Description: Antique map titled 'Picardiae Belgicae regionis descriptio'. Original antique map of the region of Picardy, France. Superb example of the decorative style of Ortelius and filled with detail of the countryside along the Somme River. Includes Abbeville, Amiens, Saint Quentin and La Fere. Two large and elaborate strapwork cartouches. Based on a map by Jean Surhon. This map originates from a Spanish edition of 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum' by A. Ortelius, published circa 1602. 

Artists and Engravers: 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.