Ortelius. Islandia. [1585, or later]

Property of the Late Gunnar Skoog

ORTELIUS, ABRAHAM

Islandia. [Antwerp, 1585, or later]

425 x 562mm., double-page engraved map, Latin text to verso, old hand-colour, small area of paper thinning around 'Hekla'

THE MOST FAMOUS EARLY MAP OF ICELAND.

This fine map of Iceland was drawn by Anders Sorensen Velleius (or Vedel), a Danish mapmaker, and published in Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum orbis terrarum from 1587 onwards. Although there are earlier printed maps of Iceland, most originate from the "Isolario" tradition of the Mediterranean world, and present a largely unrecognisable delineation, as does Olaus Magnus' wall-map of Scandinavia and the northern Atlantic, in 1539, and Jerome de Gourmont's separate map of the island derived from that. Ortelius' map is the first obtainable "modern" map of the island, with Velleius drawing on the work of Gudbrandur Thorláksson (1541-1627), Bishop of Hólar in Iceland. However, this map is celebrated more for the delicately engraved vignettes on land and in the sea, depicting all manner of land and sea-creatures, some recognisable (the polar bears for example), others the product of the imagination and superstition of writers, mariners and old-wives' tales, many linked to the descriptive text printed on the reverse. As such a strikingly visual treat, this is probably the single most collectable of all Ortelius' atlas maps, and among the most difficult to find, as it appeared only in late editions of the atlas.