Theatrum orbis terrarum

Antwerp: Gillis van den Rade, 1575. 5th Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 5th Edition. Hardcover. Large folio (428 x 295 mm). 10 unnumbered leaves, including engraved, hand-coloured and gold-heightened architectural title; the Catalogus Auctorum with 106 names; 91 maps on 70 hand-colored double-page plates mounted on guards, 48 text leaves of index. Signatures: A6 B4, a-h6. 17th-century mottled calf, spine with 7 raised bands richly gilt in compartments and with gilt-lettered label, original marbled endpapers (minor rubbing of spine and extremities, corners bumped). Paper somewhat browned throughout, very little occasional spotting, loss to lower blank corner of text leaf e4, foot of world map with short split along center fold, 14 maps with old paper repairs of tear along folds (without loss), small hole near center fold of plates 7 and 35, two small patches with abrasion to image of plate 14. Provenance: Conti Lamberti (armorial bookplate with the motto "Cosa fare capo ha" to first flyleaf). ----

SPECTACULAR COPY, IN FINE CONTEMPORARY COLOR AND UNTOUCHED SINCE ITS BINDING IN THE 17TH CENTURY, of this fifth edition in Latin of the Theatrum, and the only edition limited to approximately 100 copies from the presses of Gillis van den Radea. The Theatrum, first published by G. Coppens Diesthensis in 1570, can be regarded a milestone in the history of cartography that outlined the standards of all subsequent atlases. The Latin edition was the first to be equipped with scientific appendices with the "Synonymia Locorum Geographicum", an alphabetical list of Latin toponyms with their translation into the vernacular, followed by another list with names in the vernacular and the translation into Latin , and finally with the "De Mona Druidum Insula ... Epistle", a letter on the island of Mona (Anglesey or Ynys Mon in Gaelic, called "island of the Druids"), written by the Welsh geographer Humphrey Llwyd (1527-1568) . Llwyd is credited with inventing the term "British Empire", as well as being the first cartographer to have illustrated Wales (in fact depicted here as "Cambriae Typus Auctore Humfredo Lhuydo"). The World map in our copy is in Shirley's first plate, second state, with the crack in lower left corner roughly mended and cloud border reworked (Shirley 122).
References: Adams O-335; Alden 575/22; Koeman III, Ort 13; Van der Krogt IIIA, 31:013; Phillips 382; Shirley 122. - Visit our website to see more images!