-marcus tullius cicero (marcus tullius cicero)

This is a famous saying of Cicero, the consul and philosopher of the ancient Roman Empire. It appears on several ancient maps that we are going to introduce today. These maps are from Panorama of the World, the world's first modern atlas published in abraham ortelius (1527-1598)1570.

The Grand View of the World, the original English version of "Theatrim orbis Terrarum: Theatre of the World", the first edition contains 53 maps of 1570, which is currently recognized as the earliest modern atlas. Judging from the meaning of English words, it should be translated into Theatre of the World, but the etymology of theater originally came from Greek θ? α τ ο ν (thé atron) thea, which means "look"; After entering Latin, it became theatrum, which means "a place to watch (a program)". Orbis should mean "circle" and "area" here. In view of the fact that the concept of "earth" was not so clear at that time, it was more reasonable to translate "world region" by orbis terrarum. To sum up, Panorama of the World should be a more original Chinese translation.

Abraham Outlius's early career in map carving began as a map decorator in Guild of Saint Luke, Antwerp (a guild, not a trade union). But he is obviously very talented in business, and selling books and maps has brought him a lot of income. As a professional map profiteer, he has traveled all over Europe, including Holland, Germany, France, Britain, Ireland and Italy. 1554, when attending the Frankfurt Book Printing Exhibition, I met Gerardus Mercator, another big coffee maker in the "map circle" (we introduced him and his Mercator projection method in the last article). 1560 accompanied Mercator in Trier, Lorraine, Poipet and other places (then Britain, later Britain). ? Since then, the world has lost a successful "map master" and mankind has gained an outstanding and great scientific geographer.

1564, Outlius published his first map after "abandoning business for art"-an octagonal map of the world (the only surviving copy of this great map is in university of basel Library), and then successively published maps of Egypt, Asia, Spain and other regions until 1570, on May 20th, Gilles Coppens.

Abraham ortelius (1527- 1598)

The publication of this "Panorama of the World" is regarded as a landmark event by later generations. It completely changed the way that maps became accepted and appreciated by the well-educated classes in the European Renaissance, and became the benchmark of map making and publishing industry in that era. Later generations usually regard the publication of this atlas as the official beginning of the golden age of Dutch cartography in the16th century.

1575, Autelius was appointed King Felipe II of Spain, the geographer of the Habsburg family. In 1588, Felipe II sent the famous Spanish armada (which we mentioned in the article "Star Trek") to invade the British mainland. At that time, the last king of Tudor dynasty in England, Elizabeth II, however, in her time, Britain was far less influential than the British Empire, and she was also trying to absorb the advanced scientific knowledge that flourished in the European continent during the era of geographical discovery and the Renaissance. 16-17th century world map works are rare in English, and Latin, Dutch, French and Flemish are the main languages, for example. More than 40 years after the publication of Panorama of the World, john speed, a British cartographer, called his atlas of British counties "Panorama of the British Empire".

The fascinating maps we are going to introduce include five maps of the world and four continents, all of which are taken from the early edition of the Grand View of the World.

The central part of the picture is a map of the world engraved with Cicero's famous words. This map is based on Gastaldi's map works and Gerard Mercator's famous map 1569. It is the first map using Mercator projection. In fact, most of the maps in Panorama of the World are extracted from the works of other map makers around the world. Autrey Erus never evaded this point. He himself provided a list of 87 authors in the first edition of Panorama of the World. However, this does not affect "A Grand View of the World" to become a masterpiece across the ages. In fact, it is precisely because Ottley Uss carefully searched and selected the best regional maps of that era, and constantly arranged, supplemented and updated them into his works. Some authors and works that are almost impossible for modern people to know and understand have been handed down with the help of the "big world outlook" and can still be studied and appreciated by people today.

The map of the United States in the upper left corner may be the only one widely viewed and copied in16th century. As far as the shape of the California Peninsula is concerned, it is more accurate than many subsequent maps.

The map of Asia in the lower right corner is taken from 1567 "Map of Asia" published by Otellius himself (the geographical information comes from Albufida, Gastaldi and Gastaldi). The description of the territory of the Ming Dynasty in the map should mainly come from the information recorded by businessmen and explorers of that era. ? 1567, Zhu Zaihou, Emperor of Qin Long in the Ming Dynasty, opened the "sea ban" and the "silver ban" at the same time, and ordered that "officials and people should use silver at the same time". Since then, China has started to import silver on a large scale. According to statistics, from the middle of16th century to the beginning of19th century, Spanish silver from American colonies crossed the Pacific Ocean and was transported to China via the Philippines, accounting for 3/4 of the total output of silver in the New World of America, which attracted the attention of the sea coachman "Dutch" and began to pay attention to the distant East.

The map of Africa in the lower left corner is also based on Gastaldi 1564. In the picture, on the east coast of Africa and southeast of Madagascar, a great naval battle in the era of sail warships is in full swing. On the west coast of Africa, the Atlantic Ocean is dotted with several fish creatures, and on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, below the equator, some eastern coastlines of Brazil are painted.

The map of Europe in the upper right corner is mostly from Mercator's works, but the Russian part is from jenkinson's map works, and Scandinavia is the work of horace Magnus. In the upper left corner of the European part, half-naked Europa is sitting on the back of a bull incarnated by Zeus. They all turned around and stared at Europa's direction, but Europa's eyes were a little worried.

Europa, the Phoenician princess in Greek mythology, was taken to another continent by Zeus, who loved her deeply, and later this continent was named Europa.

1598 In June, Abraham Otellius died and was buried in St. Michel's monastery in Antwerp. At this time, the Atlas of the World has published 25 versions in 28 years, including Latin, Italian, German, French and Dutch versions, and has been widely circulated. In the monastery, on his epitaph, it is engraved with "Quietis cultor sine lite, uxore, prole." It means "perform your duties quietly, no blame, no wife and no descendants."

Otellius, who has no wife or children, left a great "prophecy"-the theory of continental drift, in addition to epoch-making map works. He was the first person to emphasize the geometric consistency between the American coast and the European and African continents. In his book A Dictionary of American Geography, he wrote: "The United States was torn from Europe and Africa by earthquakes and floods ... If someone takes out a map of the world and thinks carefully about the outlines of the coasts of three continents, the traces of the fracture will appear." Today, more than three centuries later, Autrey's geographical hypothesis of continental drift has been proved to be correct.

St. Mitchell monastery in Antwerp

The library of the University of Amsterdam continues to provide online exhibitions about Abraham Otellius, and hopes to learn more about the life and works of the master at the following website (take it away! )

http://cf.uba.uva.nl/en/collections/maps/ortelius/?