"Palestinae sive Totius Terrae Promissionis Nova Descriptio Auctore Tilemanno Stella Sigenens", Ortelius, Abraham

This map of the Holy Land covers the region from the Nile Delta to Lebanon, and focuses on the desert of the Exodus. Ortelius' map was based on Tilemanno Stella's map of 1557 that became the prototype for the modern cartography of the Holy Land. Stella adapted the coastline and Dead Sea from the configuration of Jacob Ziegler's map of 1532. But here, Ortelius rounds Stella's angular Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The map is richly decorated with two elaborate, neoclassical cartouches. The unique square compass rose showing magnetic declination was also copied from Ziegler, but here is curiously shown up-side-down. The sea is teaming with five ships (three of which are shown with canons firing) and one sea monster. This example is from the second of three plates used for the Theatrum. Latin text on verso.

References: Laor #539; Nebenzahl (Holy Land) pp. 84-86; Tooley (TMC-3) p. 28; Van den Broecke #171.

Condition: B+

A dark impression with full contemporary color on a sheet with the crossed arrows watermark commonly found on Ortelius maps. There is a bit of offsetting and some of the green pigment has oxidized to brown, but the paper is still supple.