Here be dragons
Dec. 30th, 2023 04:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Imagined Corners - Exploring the World's First Atlas, by Paul Binding
This was a random pick from our shelves. Despite the title, only about a quarter of the book is about the first atlas, the Theatrum orbis terrarum produced by Abraham Ortelius in 1570. In fact most of the book is a biography of Ortelius, with lots of background information about life in Antwerp in the sixteenth century, with all manner of religious schism and intermittent conflict disrupting the more pragmatic and mercantile culture. Like a biography I read on Mercator many years ago, the result is a bit dry, and perhaps indicative both of their subjects and of the available material that has survived the years.
This was a random pick from our shelves. Despite the title, only about a quarter of the book is about the first atlas, the Theatrum orbis terrarum produced by Abraham Ortelius in 1570. In fact most of the book is a biography of Ortelius, with lots of background information about life in Antwerp in the sixteenth century, with all manner of religious schism and intermittent conflict disrupting the more pragmatic and mercantile culture. Like a biography I read on Mercator many years ago, the result is a bit dry, and perhaps indicative both of their subjects and of the available material that has survived the years.