This online exhibition presents an introduction to the collection of printed world atlases within the wider holdings of the Society’s cartographical collection, which comprise over one million maps, charts, atlases, gazetteers and globes. Our cartographical collection is the largest component of the world’s largest privately held geographical collection of over two million items, made fully accessible by a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other supporters.
The introduction of the printing press to Europe in the mid-15th century was to have a profound effect on the publication and dissemination of geographical information. However, it would take another 20 years of development until the appearance of the first work recognisable as an 'atlas'.
Printing was of immense intellectual and cultural value but for most early publishers it was primarily a business venture intended to generate profit, therefore any undue expense was to be avoided. Surveying the known world and using that information to produce a series of up-to-date maps was an exercise far beyond the technical and financial capability of any individual or government of the broad period of the Renaissance (between 14-17th century CE) therefore publishers often had to look elsewhere for a readily available source of 'royalty-free' information.
Ptolemy's 'Geography'
One such source of information were works by Claudius Ptolemy, a Greek scholar working in Alexandria in the 2nd century CE. Ptolemy’s works on geography and astronomy, mostly compiled from the works of earlier scholars, had long been lost to most of Europe but manuscript copies survived in circulation amongst western Asian cultures. Many years before the invention of the printing press at least one of these manuscripts was translated from Arabic back into the original Greek, then into Latin and gained popularity in the academic circles of the Renaissance.
Ptolemy’s Geography contained fairly detailed descriptions of the world as known (or supposed) at the time of his writing. If the original work ever contained any form of maps, none had survived the information’s journey into western Asia, therefore the early scholars studying the text began to 'reconstruct' maps from the information contained in the text.
This reconstruction was possible due to the detailed instructions on geodesy (measurement of the Earth), primitive map projections and co-ordinate systems within Ptolemy’s text. Piecing this information together enabled early cartographers to construct maps using the information provided and these maps became the basis for all subsequent European mapping of the world.
Manuscript copies of Ptolemy’s text and the reconstructed maps to accompany it had a limited circulation in the mid-15th century and it was not until the later part of the century that engravers and printers began to take an interest.
The first edition of Ptolemy’s Geography to be printed and published with maps appeared in Bologna in 1477. The maps were probably engraved by Taddeo Crivelli and three similar versions were published by Arnold Buckinck in Rome (1478), Francesco Berlinghieri in Florence (1482) and Lienhart Holle in Ulm (1482).
These early examples were some of the first books to be printed with illustrations of any sort, let alone maps. It took some time for the intricacies of woodblock carving to be mastered and earlier versions were not particularly well received.
In 1482 Lienhart Holle produced the most lavish versions of the Ptolemaic maps so far seen. The basis of this work was a manuscript version of Ptolemy’s text and its reconstructed maps prepared around 1468-71 by a priest named Nicolaus Germanus.
Holle had the maps engraved on woodblocks and prints taken from these blocks were then hand-coloured to the highest standard using the best available materials. Unfortunately, the expense of the undertaking (the blue lapis lazuli pigment he used, for example, has always been one of the most expensive materials in the art world) landed Holle in financial difficulties and in 1484 his business appears to have foundered.
In 1486 another Ulm printer, Johannes Reger, issued this same edition of the Geography using the same wood-block maps acquired from Holle but with re-set text. It appears that he also bought some unsold stock of Holle's vividly-coloured maps and Reger used these up in his 1486 issue before hiring a cheaper colourist for the majority of the 'true' 1486 issues. Hence, there are a few 1482/1486 'hybrids' around of Reger's issue of Ptolemy's Geography, of which the Society’s copy is one.
Among several former owners, this 1482/1486 'hybrid' copy belonged to William Morris (1834-1896), socialist reformer and arts & craftsman. He had concentrated on building his personal library of incunabula (the name for books printed before 1501) and manuscripts from about 1890 (he died in 1896). Eventually this William Morris copy of the Geography came to the Society through the widow of Henry Yates Thompson (son-in-law of George Smith - founder and publisher of the multi-volume Dictionary of National Biography).
The Society holds more than 20 original examples from the 56 known versions of Ptolemy’s Geography printed between 1477 and 1883. These include an edition prepared and published by Gerard Mercator in 1578, which is regarded as one of the finest engraved examples, and the last major revision to include new maps which was produced in 1596/7.
From the earliest printed versions of Geography it became apparent that the maps were greatly outdated, not least because the maps failed to consider the 15th century European discoveries outside the traditional Roman world, but the maps also retained out-dated perceptions of European geography, for example the west-east orientation of Scotland on maps of the British Isles.
A map of the British Isles from ‘Claudii Ptolomei viri Alexandrini Cosmographie …’ published by J. Reger (Ulm, 1482-6). The map of the British Isles depicts a strange 'wind-swept' shape of Scotland: as Ptolemy's maps were dependent upon geographical co-ordinates he placed blame for any errors on near-contemporaries. RGS-IBG: rgs567822, CA14E-001, S0010494
Map of North Africa, from ‘Claudii Ptolomei viri Alexandrini Cosmographie …’ published by J. Reger (Ulm, 1482/6). This early map of Africa shows mountains, lakes and rivers, including the Mountains of the Moon as a source of the Nile. RGS-IBG: rgs567822, CA14E-001, S0014536
New interpretations of the Ptolemaic atlas appeared throughout the 16th century.
In 1507/8, a 'New World' view by Johann Ruysch was drawn as a special feature of the Rome edition of Ptolemy’s Geography and is one of the earliest printed maps to show any part of the Americas. The world map, which occupies two facing pages in the volume and is shaped liked an open fan, documents the discoveries of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) and John Cabot (c.1450-c.1500), as well as drawing from information within Marco Polo’s (c.1254-c.1324) accounts and from Portuguese sources.
Apart from the addition of the 'New World' to a few of the maps in some of the editions of Ptolemy’s Geography published in the 16th century, the format and content of the various editions of the work stayed more or less the same throughout that period. Some publishers added a few more maps, some stayed true to the original format and a popular variation incorporated 'historical' and 'modern' versions of the same map on subsequent pages.
In 1511, however, Bernard Sylvanus, a map and atlas publisher from Eboli in present-day southern Italy, attempted to modernise the original Ptolemaic maps by re-designing and adding more recent information. The most striking example of this is the map of the British Isles. The Sylvanus version is arguably more 'accurate' than the Greco-Roman inspired original, but despite other innovations, such as the early attempt at colour printing, this atlas was not a success and virtually all subsequent Ptolemaic atlases reverted to the original map design.
In 1548, Jacopo Gastaldi [ca.1500-ca.1565], from the Venetian Republic and a leading mapmaker at the time, produced the first small-format edition of Ptolemy’s Geography which included 34 modern maps, and which is generally thought of as the first 'pocket atlas'.
Gastaldi’s edition also added a new map of South-East Asia and the first regional maps of the Americas, including a map of the eastern seaboard of North America.
Gerard Mercator and Abraham Ortelius
Thirty years later, the Flemish cartographer, Gerard Mercator (1512-1594), produced a version of Ptolemy’s Geography, under the title Tabulae Geographicae C. Ptolemei ad mentem autoris restitutae et emendatae (the geographical tables of C. Ptolemy restored and corrected by the author) (1578). Printed a century after the first examples of Ptolemaic atlases appeared, it reverts to the original style and excludes all attempts at modernisation. Mercator envisioned his version as a companion to his own forthcoming atlas of the modern world and spent 13 years researching, drawing, and engraving the maps he included. The quality of the engravings was such that the original printing plates were still in use when the final edition of Mercator’s Geography was published in 1730.
Mercator was one of the world’s leading cartographers at that time. He is most renowned for his world map Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata (1569), published almost a decade earlier. Translated as New and more complete representation of the terrestrial globe properly adapted for use in navigation, the map aimed to present contemporary knowledge of the geography of the world and, with the creation of a new projection, be more useful for navigation. This cylindrical projection, which represents north as up and south as down and preserves locations and shapes, became known as the ‘Mercator projection’ and became the standard map projection for navigation due to its ability to represent lines of constant true direction. However, the projection distorted the size of objects as the latitude increases from the equator towards the poles. For example, Greenland appears larger than Australia but in fact Australia is approximately three and a half times larger than Greenland.
Advances in European exploration, cartography and printing created both a demand for mapping and the means to supply it. In the mid-16th century several publishers were producing printed maps in all shapes and sizes, with the trade particularly strong in Italy. The market for maps grew with the expansion in trade and the desire, led by European explorers, traders, diplomats and the military to gain a better understanding of the known world at that time.
As the earlier Ptolemaic atlases became more and more obsolete it became fashionable to assemble bespoke atlases containing the best available maps regardless of their source.
Several map sellers in Rome were involved in this business but the only one we can identify is Antoine Lafreri (or Lafréry) (1512-1577), a native of Burgundy who moved to Rome about 1540 and set up shop as an engraver and publisher.
About 70 examples of these Italian assembled atlases survive, all of them unique in their composition, but Lafreri was the only atlas assembler to include an engraved title page in his commissions, enabling identification of his work. Because of this these atlases are more commonly referred to as 'Lafreri' atlases.
Two of the 70 known 'Lafreri' atlases are held in the Society's Collections.
'Britanniae Insulae quae nunc Angliae et Scotiae regna continet cum Hibernia adiacente', 1558. RGS-IBG: rgs567452, CM15-EUN-GBA-A502, S0013364
This map by George Lily, an English Catholic émigré working in Rome, was one of the first separate sheet maps of the British Isles. It was widely copied and the example shown here was engraved in Italy after the original by George Lily and bound into a 'Lafreri' atlas.
As the demand for maps and atlases increased during the age of exploration it became apparent that assembling random maps from various publishers into a bound atlas was perhaps not the best way of presenting content consistently and in a logical sequence. The variety of paper sizes and map orientations in use led to atlases consisting of large maps folded down, small maps pasted on larger pieces of paper and multi sheet maps being bound as individual pages.
It was not until 1570 that the Flemish map maker Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) produced an atlas with a consistent size and style throughout the volume.
Ortelius began his career as an illuminator of maps, entering the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke (a city guild for painters and other artists) in 1547. Following the death of his father at a young age, Ortelius had to supplement his family’s income by dealing and trading in maps, using his engraving and colouring skills to embellish the maps and sell them on to the Flemish middle class. This is described as the 'Golden Age' for Antwerp when over 40% of the world’s trade flowed through the city’s ports. Ortelius’s work included annual visits to the Frankfurt book and print fair, where he met Gerard Mercator in 1554. In 1561, Ortelius moved towards the publishing side of the business and three years later produced his own world map, the eight sheet Typus orbis terrarum, of which only one copy survives today in the library of the University of Basel.
At the suggestion of an Antwerp merchant, Aegidius Hooftman, Ortelius began to assemble a collection of uniform maps in a single volume, large enough to contain useful detail but small enough to easily use in an office or on board a ship. Ortelius apparently discussed his ideas with Mercator, who encouraged him even though he was working on his own atlas. Ortelius published his work Theatrum orbis terrarum (the Theatre of the world) in 1570, and although its title did not contain the word 'atlas', the work is regarded by many as being the first modern atlas and it marked the beginning of a shift in the centre of map production away from Italy. The atlas contained the latest Western knowledge of all the continents and included 53 charts from various cartography masters with accompanying descriptive texts. It included a reduced version of his 1564 world map Typus orbis terrarum.
The atlas proved extremely popular and achieved great commercial success: numerous editions were issued in various languages, including Latin, Dutch, French, German, English, and Italian. Ortelius regularly offered new and updated editions to the market and by 1612 the new edition contained 100 maps, nearly double the original atlas. Cornelis Koeman, the Dutch geodetic engineer and cartographer, author of The History of Abraham Ortelius and his Theatrum Orbis Terrarum wrote how Theatrum orbis terrarum shaped the future of cartography:
"Shape and contents set the standards for later atlases ... The characteristic feature of the Theatrum is, that it consists of two elements, forming part of a unitary whole: text and maps. This concept for a 'Theatre of the world' was followed through the 17th century. Before Ortelius no one had done this."
Meanwhile, Gerard Mercator had been continuing work on his cosmographic project and his set of modern mapping to complement his 1578 version of Ptolemy’s Geography.
The use of the word 'atlas' to describe a bound set of maps is entirely due to this hugely important work. Building on the work of Ortelius, Mercator produced a uniform atlas, Atlas sive Cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura (1595), which became one of the best selling and most influential works of its day.
Mercator’s use of the name 'Atlas', however, has caused some confusion ever since because there were two mythical figures of that name. Mercator was referring to the lesser known of the two - a Berber philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and mythical king, Atlas of Mauretania in the ancient Maghreb, who supposedly made the first celestial globe, rather than to the Titan from Greek mythology, condemned to carry the Heavens for eternity. This is reflected in the title page illustration from the atlas (below) which shows Atlas holding and measuring a globe, not supporting it on his shoulders.
The amalgamation of these two figures by some later atlas publishers has led to an interesting variety of illustrations on title pages over the years.
Mercator did not live to see the success of the first 'atlas'; he died shortly before it was published, and his family then sold on the printing plates to Jodocus Hondius (1563–1612).
Hondius carried on the work of Mercator, improving and expanding the atlas but still using Mercator’s name in addition to his own. This atlas was extremely successful with all printed copies selling out within a year.
Joan Blaeu and early Dutch atlas publishing
Throughout the 17th century, Dutch cartographers were pre-eminent in atlas publishing, this in part due to their dominance in maritime trade during what is described as a ‘Golden Age’.
The legacy of Ortelius passed to Mercator and then, through the purchase of plates, amalgamation of their businesses and even through marriage, to the great publishing firms of Hondius, Janssonius, Blaeu, and others.
One of the pinnacles of Dutch atlas making was Joan Blaeu’s (1596-1673) Great Atlas, the largest and most expensive printed book of the 17th century. The Society holds a Dutch edition in nine volumes but there were also editions in Latin (11 vols), French (12 vols) and German (10 vols).
This was to be the last major work from the Blaeu family. In 1672, their printing works and stocks of unsold material were destroyed in a fire and Joan Blaeu died the following year. No new editions of his atlases were published, and the family business went bankrupt within a few years.
The first British world atlases
British world atlases date from John Speed's (1551/2-1629) A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World, first published in London in 1627. The first world atlas published by an English cartographer, this work was moderately successful but had little impact on the domination of the Dutch atlas publishers of the time.
Speed’s reputation as a cartographer had been established with his earlier work Theatre of the Empire of great Britaine. Published in 1611, it was the first printed atlas of the British Isles. Rather than conduct a new survey Speed adapted, copied and compiled works of other cartographers, such as Christopher Saxton (c.1540-c.1610), John Norden (1548-1625), Gerard Mercator and others. Speed’s atlas is admired for its detailed plans of principal British towns, many of which are the earliest recorded plans of the towns featured. The maps were also noted for their decorative elements such as coats of arms and illustrations of notable people and places.
So few world atlases were produced in Britain during the 17th century that 50 years after its original publication Speed’s A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World was still in print.
Inspired by the vast multi-volume atlases being produced by the Dutch, Moses Pitt (c.1639–1697), originally from Cornwall but working as a publisher in London, decided to produce an English version. Supported by the Royal Society, for which he did other printing work, and in particular by Sir Christopher Wren, the first volume of Pitt’s monumental work appeared in 1680, titled The English Atlas.
Unfortunately, Pitt was rather over-ambitious in the scale of his project and production costs escalated to over £1,000 per volume. Only four volumes of the planned 12 were completed before Pitt was declared bankrupt and imprisoned in Fleet Prison for debt.
On release from prison Pitt did not return to atlas production but he did publish a successful first-hand account of life inside a debtors’ prison, titled The Cry of the Oppressed: Being a True and Tragical Account of the Unparallel'd Sufferings of Multitudes of Poor Imprison'd Debtors In Most of the Gaols in England (1691).
John Cary (c.1754–1835), an English cartographer and a skilled engraver, is best known for his mapping of the United Kingdom and his New and Correct English Atlas, published in 1787, was a standard reference work in England.
Among all of his UK mapping, however, he did find time to produce one world atlas, the New Universal Atlas, published in 1808. This was a popular atlas which he published first in 1808 and which subsequently ran for another seven issues, the last appearing in 1844, almost 10 years after his death.
18th and 19th century atlas production
Johann Baptist Homann (1664-1724), one of the leading German cartographers of his day, was appointed Geographer to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in 1715. Homann produced a vast number of maps and atlases in his lifetime. His Atlas Novus Terrarum Orbis Imperia … (or Neuer Atlas) was re-issued several times and is particularly noted for its ornate title page. The engraving by Caspar Luycken (1672-1708) includes an allegorical image of Atlas holding the world aloft, along with images of Triton, Mercury and a number of other gods of Greek mythology, overlooking a projection of the globe showing Africa and Europe.
After Homann’s death in 1724 his business lived on as the 'Homann Heirs' company which continued to produce cartographic material until 1848.
French geographers placed cartography on a firm scientific footing during the 18th century, and many of their maps reflect original surveys or first-hand accounts obtained from French explorers and missionaries.
Several French publishers produced atlases on these principles in the mid-18th century and one of the finest examples is the Atlas Universel, the work of Gilles Robert de Vaugondy (1686-1766) and his son Didier (1723-1786). This atlas was prepared over a period of eight years and was reported to have been published with the support of Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of the French King Louis XV. Atlas Universel was considered to be the best general standard-format world atlas of its day, using the newest available sources of geographical knowledge.
The first printed world atlas to be published in Austria appeared in 1800.
Franz Anton Schraembl (1751-1803) was a Vienna based cartographer and in 1786 he began work on an ambitious project to produce a high-quality atlas based on the most up-to-date cartographic information available.
Schraembl derived his maps from the work of other leading cartographers and from the reports of explorers such as James Cook (1728-1779). The atlas Allgemeiner Grosser Atlas was finally finished in 1800 but, possibly restricted by its high production cost, enjoyed only relatively minimal circulation.
Heinrich Berghaus's Physikalischer Atlas was one of the first atlases to attempt to portray the physical geography of the world in addition to the more common geographical representations. The influential and pioneering atlas was first published in parts between 1838-1848 and was to be used in part in Alexander von Humboldt's (1769-1859) Cosmos.
The atlas is divided into eight thematic sections: meteorology and climatology, hydrology and hydrography, geology, earth magnetism, botanical geography, zoological geography, anthropogeography, and ethnography.
Map and atlas printing using etched copper or steel printing plates and hand colouring was a time consuming and expensive process. The German firm of Velhagen & Klasing was one of the first atlas publishers to adopt more modern printing techniques, such as colour lithography using etched zinc plates, with which they could greatly reduce the cost of producing full colour atlases.
Andrees Handatlas was the company’s best-selling work. It appeared in nine German editions between 1881 and 1937 and versions were produced in French, Danish, Swedish and English. Regional variations such as Swiss and Austro-Hungarian editions also appeared.
The first English edition was published by Cassell as the Universal Atlas in 1892 but the version published by The Times newspaper as the first Times Atlas in 1895 is probably better known.
'The Times' Atlas
The Times series of atlases is probably one of the best known 'brand names' in the UK with many variants being produced over the last 120 years.
The Times Comprehensive Atlas is widely regarded as a standard reference work and examples of this atlas and its predecessors can be found on the shelves of the Foyle Reading Room.
The very first Times Atlas, however, was this edition commissioned from the German firm of Velhagen & Klasing using an existing format but with a few design changes and a translation of the German text.
The Soviet 'Atlas Mira'
The Atlas Mira was intended to be a showcase of Soviet cartography and the first volume of a planned three volume set was published in 1937. It was a relatively lavish production with embossing on both the cover and title pages. The timing was not great, however, and it was withdrawn from circulation by Soviet authorities just prior to the outbreak of the Second World War (and before the third volume was produced) since it contained some of the most detailed and informative maps of the Soviet Union available on the international market.
Volume 2 of the Atlas Mira was published in 1939 but was almost immediately withdrawn from circulation. The United States Government, however, managed to obtain two copies of Volume 2 before it was restricted and in 1943 the Office of Strategic Services (a forerunner of the CIA) produced this rather unusual photographic reproduction, Great Soviet World Atlas. It is quite likely that the information contained in this volume was a major source of geographical intelligence for the West at the beginning of the post-WW2 Cold War.
The world atlas in the 21st century
For over 20 years Philip’s, one of the oldest publishing houses in the UK, has published a range of world atlases in association with the Royal Geographical Society.
George Philip (1800-1886) began his business in Liverpool in 1834 as a bookseller and stationer, before expanding to produce his own books, maps and educational material. Philip used cartographers such as John Bartholomew Sr. (1784–1871), August Petermann (1822-1878) and William Hughes (1818-1876) to produce maps on copper plates which were then printed and hand-coloured by tinters. In addition to the commercial and educational atlases, Philip also produced important scientific maps, notably of the Arctic, the Pacific Northwest and the West Indies.
The 2021 Atlas of the World is the most comprehensive of the current range of Philip's world atlases and contains the most up-to-date geographical information alongside satellite imagery as well as the latest statistics on everything from global migration to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This selection of maps and atlases drawn from the Collections of the Society reflects the development and evolution not just of European knowledge about the geography of the world from the 2nd century CE onwards, but also provides a testament to the commercial desire and tenacity of early publishers using the latest technology available to present mapping in greater detail and with more accuracy over a span of more than 500 years.
For more information on how you can use the Collections for research and study please visit the Society’s website or email for specific enquiries linked to the Collections.
Prints of a selection of the atlas plates shown in the exhibition can be purchased from the Society's Print Store.
The Society is grateful to the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Rolex for their support for the Society’s Collections.
Exhibition curated by David McNeill and Jools Cole. Digital exhibition created by Jools Cole.
All images © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) unless stated otherwise.