Adam Smyth · Impossible Desires: Death of the Book lrb.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from lrb.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Ortelius was a wealthy businessman and paid for the publication of his
Theatrum out of his own pocket, but he was not a printer and had to employ others to print it for him.
Abraham Ortelius by Peter Paul Rubens , Museum Plantin-Moretus via Wikimedia Commons
A man who printed, not the first 1570 editions, but the important expanded 1579 Latin edition, with its bibliography (
Catalogus Auctorum), index (
Index Tabularum), the maps with text on the back, followed by a register of place names in ancient times (
Nomenclator), and who also played a major role in marketing the book, was Ortelius’ friend and colleague the Antwerp publisher, printer and bookseller Christophe Plantin (c. 1520–1589).