#ABRAHAM ORTELIUS FREE#

In 1575 he was appointed geographer to the king of Spain, Philip II, on the recommendation of Arias Montanus, who vouched for his orthodoxy. Abraham remained close to his cousin Emanuel van Meteren who would later move to London. Following the death of Ortelius' father, his uncle Jacobus van Meteren returned from religious exile in England to take care of Ortelius. In 1535, the family had fallen under suspicion of Protestantism.

#ABRAHAM ORTELIUS FREE#

The Orthellius family were originally from Augsburg, a Free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Ortelius was born in the city of Antwerp, which was then in the Habsburg Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). One of the founders and the notable representatives of the Netherlandish school of cartography in its golden age (the 16th and 17th centuries), he is also believed to be the first person to imagine that the continents were joined together before drifting to their present positions. Abraham Ortelius (also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels 14 April 1527 – 28 June 1598) was a Flemish Netherlandish cartographer and geographer, conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World).

Abraham ortelius