Antique Map of the Coastline Between Calais and Estaples and Northern France

Antique map titled 'Caletensium et Bononiensium Ditionis Accurata Delinatio [on sheet with] Veromanduorum Eorumque Confinium Exactissima Discriptio'. Two maps on a folio sheet. Calentensium covers the coastline between Calais and Estaples based in part on a four-sheet map by Nicolas de Nicolay. Veromanduorum covers a small region surrounding Saint-Quentin in northern France. Each is covered with tiny forests and cities and has a decorative title cartouche. This map originates from a Spanish edition of 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum' by A. Ortelius. Published circa 1612.

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 business man, and most of his journeys before 1560 were for commercial purposes. In 1560, while traveling 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 his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World), which would become the first modern atlas.