Life
Ortelius was born in the city of Antwerp, which was then in the Habsburg ruled Seventeen Provinces. The Orthellius family were originally from Augsburg, a Free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. From 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. He 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).
Beginning as a map-engraver, in 1547 he entered the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an illuminator of maps. He supplemented his income trading in books, prints, and maps, and his journeys included yearly visits to the Frankfurt book and print fair where he met Gerardus Mercator in 1554. In 1560, however, when travelling with Mercator to Trier, Lorraine, and Poitiers, he seems to have been attracted, largely by Mercator’s influence, towards the career of a scientific geographer.
Read more about this topic: Abraham Ortelius
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Capital punishment kills immediately, whereas lifetime imprisonment does so slowly. Which executioner is more humane? The one who kills you in a few minutes, or the one who wrests your life from you in the course of many years?”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“A book is a part of life, a manifestation of life, just as much as a tree or a horse or a star. It obeys its own rhythms, its own laws, whether it be a novel, a play, or a diary. The deep, hidden rhythm of life is always there—that of the pulse, the heart beat.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“The fancy that extraterrestrial life is by definition of a higher order than our own is one that soothes all children, and many writers.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)