Abraham Ortelius

Abraham Ortelius (also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 14 April 1527 – 28 June 1598) was a Flemish/Netherlandish cartographer and geographer, conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World). One of the founders and the notable representatives of the Netherlandish school of cartography in its golden age (the 16th and 17th centuries), he is also believed to be the first person to imagine that the continents were joined together before drifting to their present positions.

Ortelius was born in the city of Antwerp, which was then in the Habsburg Netherlands. The Orthellius family were originally from Augsburg, a Free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1535, the family had fallen under suspicion of Protestantism. Following the death of Ortelius' father, his uncle Jacobus van Meteren returned from religious exile in England to take care of Ortelius. Abraham remained close to his cousin Emanuel van Meteren who would later move to London. In 1575 he was appointed geographer to the king of Spain, Philip II, on the recommendation of Arias Montanus, who vouched for his orthodoxy.

He traveled extensively in Europe, and is specifically known to have traveled throughout the Seventeen Provinces; in southern, western, northern, and eastern Germany (e.g., 1560, 1575–1576); France (1559–1560); England and Ireland (1576), and Italy (1578, and perhaps twice or thrice between 1550 and 1558).

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