Index of bibliographical sources mentioned in Ortelius’ map texts.
Introduction to this index:
This index consists of all bibliographical sources mentioned in most individual map texts on verso of the maps in most editions of Ortelius’ Theatrum. As the remaining maps and remaining editions are covered, more names and occurences of these names in map texts will be added. Therefore, this is work in progress. Yet, the great majority of the bibliographical sources mentioned on the text pages of Ortelius’ atlas maps are covered in this index.
The index has been made by merging all bibliographical lists of sources as they appear for each individual map after the text of that map in the background section of this website, with a minibiography added for each author. It reflects Ortelius’ library of books, rather than his collection of maps.
That Ortelius possessed most of the works referred to in this index himself, is evident from the following quote, taken from the Germaniae Veteris maptext (Ort199, paragraphs 43-44), in my translation:
"But so far we are in lack of all these books by Livius" <referring to book 104 of Livius’ Epitome>, "and Plinius" <referring to Plinius Secundus’ 20 books on Germany, as mentioned by Cæcilius>. "Yet, there are some men without any reputation who brag that they have these books at their disposal, and allow them to remain hidden, and resist the worms, which causes great harm and damage to science and society." In a similar vein a quote from the text on the Daphne map, (Ort232 paragraph 27): "About this "Daphne", I would to God <wish to see> that work by "Protagorides" which he wrote about Daphnian Plays, Feasts and Assemblies which "Athenæus" refers to in his fourth book. <I also wish that> the oration written by "Libianus" the Sophist, which "Iulian" refers to in his epistles, and highly recommends, was still extant". These remarks express Ortelius’ deep frustration about some books he knows to exist or to have existed to which he has no access. The fact that these are the only texts in the entire Theatrum text corpus with complaints of this nature seem to indicate that the large majority of the books he refers to in his maps texts were in fact in his possession. He was an avid buyer of books throughout his life, both for study and reference, as also to sell to the same buyers who bought his Theatrum atlas and loose sheet maps. A survey of all the books, atlases, maps, and sheets of blank paper Ortelius bought from and sold to Christoffel Plantin can be found in Denucé, J. (1912) Oud-Nederlandsche Kaartmakers in betrekking met Plantijn Two volumes, Antwerpen, reprinted by Meridian, Amsterdam, 1964, page 149 ff. of volume II. Since we do not know which of the books mentioned there were sold by Ortelius, and which books he kept for study and reference, this information cannot be used to reconstruct Ortelius'’library. But since we just noted Ortelius’ frustration about not being able to acquire some of the books he knows to exist, it seems fair to say that almost all of the authors and books mentioned in this list were in Ortelius’ possession, about one thousand books and manuscripts altogether, written by some 800 different authors. The number of references to these authors as they occur in the collective map texts runs to over 10,000. These are all given in this index.
These authors and their books and manuscripts can be grouped into three categories: classical authors who wrote manuscripts in Greek or Latin, covering the period of about 800 B.C. to about 500 A.D. The second category is medieval manuscripts, spanning the period from about 500 to 1400 A.D. The third period is the Renaissance era, beginning with the introduction of printed books and ending around the death of Ortelius at the end of the 16th century, books which may also be called contemporary from Ortelius’ point of view.
The frequency distribution of authors among these three groups is about 250 (or 30%) classical authors (10% Greek, 20% Latin), about 80 (or10%) medieval authors. The remaining 500 (or 60%) authors are contemporary. On the other hand, when we look at the number of times each source is referred to in the map texts, the share of the various categories of authors is completely different.
The top 40 authors and the number of times each of these authors is referred to in all merged map texts is the following:
1. Plinius: 451 references occurring in the combined map texts
2. Strabo: 344
3. Cæsar: 178
4. Ptolemæus, "Prince of Geographers": 158
5. Tacitus: 155
6. Diodorus Siculus: 116
7. Pomponius Mela, "the Worthy, Renowned Geographer: 99
8. Plutarchus: 94
9. Solinus Polyhistor: 90
10. Livius, "a man of singular judgment": 84
11. Athenæus: 83
12. Ammianus Marcellinus: 77
13. Virgilius, "the Great, Fair and Westerner": 73
14. Herodotus: 69
15. Münster: 69
16. Ovidius, "the Pleasant Poet": 63
17. Pausanias: 60
18. Trogus Pompeius, "the Serious Historiographer": 60
19. Claudius Ælianus: 57
20. Dion Prusæus: 57
21. Valerius Flaccus: 55
22. Crantzius: 52
23. Josephus, "a Most Serious Scholar": 49
24. Apollodorus: 49
25. Apollonius Rhodius: 48
26. Dionysius Afer: 48
27. Polybius: 46
28. Lucanus, "the Poet": 45
29. Aristoteles: 45
30. Varro: 43
31. Eusebius: 41
32. Seneca: 40
33. Stephanus: 38
34. Guicciardini, "who depicts so lifelike that it seems you have been there": 38
35. Homerus, "the Prince of Poets": 35
36. Claudianus, "the Christian Poet": 35
37. Maffei: 34
38. Silius Italicus, "the Worthy Poet": 32
39. Suidas: 32
40. Cicero, "the Orator": 31
Note that the first authors who do not come from the classical group are the contemporary author Münster, ranking 15, Crantzius ranking 22, Guicciardini ranking 34 and Maffei ranking 37. The most frequently quoted medieval or Byzantine authors is Suidas ranking 39. This means that Ortelius put greatest trust in his classical sources, probably knew them best and considered them to be most reliable, as also appears from the epithets or characteristics attributed to some of them, which are given above.
This index is ordered alphabetically by author. In the very short biographical introduction of each author, the book or books written by this author are mentioned, with an indication specifying by Ortelius-number in which Ortelius map-texts a reference is made to this book or these books.
After that, specific references to map-text and paragraph number of that text are given in a separate section below the short biography and bibliography of the author. In this section, the first group of references consists of those where the author is mentioned on the mapsheet or in the text on its back without any mention of the book to which reference is made. The second set consists of references where Books and Chapters of a work of the author in question are given, but where Ortelius does not give the name of the work. Usually this can be inferred from other information provided. The third set of references refers to specific works, of which the title is given. Not all three categories occur for all authors.
In the case where an author has only written one book, or in the case where only one book of the author survives, the list of references to the text, the list of references where books and chapters are mentioned, but not the title of the book, and the list of references mentioning the book, all refer to the same book. But often, the situation is not so clear. When an author is known by more than one book, it can often not be determined when a Book number and often a Chapter number is given in the reference to which book by this author that reference refers.
Given the magnitude of such a yask, I have refrained from checking all the sources in the original.
It is difficult to separate bibliographical and cartographic sources, since most map designers also wrote books. For about one quarter of the sources listed here, biographical data of the sources could be obtained from Brandmaier (1914) which is the only publication so far that has made an attempt at identifying and listing Ortelius’ bibliographical sources, albeit a very incomplete one. Further data on authors mentioned have been obtained from a variety of sources including Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum (1493), inventories of early printed books, encyclopedias, the Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, books on Neo-Latin and from the internet, notably through the search engine Google and through the Karlsruher Virtueller Katalog. Also, much information derives from catalogues of antiquarian auctions, booksellers and mapsellers, as well as from the standard works on Ortelius’ cartographical sources, viz. Meurer (1991) and Karrow (1993) which complement each other conveniently. The National Union Catalogue containing all (old) books in libraries in the USA proved useful. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Pieter van der Horst, University of Utrecht, for a large number of corrections on the classical authors of this list. Remaining mistakes are my own.
This index still has a number of sources that could not be identified as a result of which no biographical or bibliographical data are given in this index. Wherever the interested user of this list can supply missing information, I would be very grateful indeed, since it will enhance the usefulness of this list.
Note also that there is little consistency in the naming of authors and in the spelling of their names. Further, sometimes the first name precedes the last name, sometimes it is not clear what is the first name and what the last. Also, the same author may be referred to under quite different names, e.g. Volaterranus is also called Maffeius. Therefore, I provide many cross-references, referring the reader to a different name or spelling in this index pointing to the same author. The index opens with some books of undetermined authorship including data where this reference can be found in Ortelius’ map texts.