Atlases
The term “atlas” comes from the name of a mythological Greek figure, Atlas. As punishment for fighting with the Titans against the gods, Atlas was forced to hold up the planet Earth and the heavens on his shoulders. Because Atlas was often pictured on ancient books of maps, these became known as atlases.
On May 20, 1570, Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius published his map book ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’. This groundbreaking book contains 53 map-sheets that covered the entire world and it’s considered the “world’s first book of maps” as it was the first that reduced the best available maps of the era to a uniform format. For that, it was an immediate commercial success.
The term ATLAS term would not have come into play for 25 years, when Gerard Mercator’s ‘Atlas sive Cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mvndi et fabricati figvra’ was published in 1595. On the title page, Mercator included the figure of a man with one globe between his hands and one laying on the ground:
Have a look at some important atlases published from 1513 up to the 18th century.