Germaniae Veteris, typus

Northern Europe during the Classical Era, according to 17th century scholars.

This beautiful antique map covers a large territory in northern Europe, between the Adriatic and Baltic Seas and from the Low Countries to nearly the mouth of the Danube River. Rudimentary geographic features are depicted pictorially, and Latin place names reflect the region during antiquity (with a few notable exceptions like Venice). Vast regions are assigned to various ‘barbarian’ tribes, with further groups listed in a table in the lower left.

The map was originally created by Abraham Ortelius (duly credited in dedicatory text, lower right) several decades earlier, who incorporated information from a number of classical sources like Cato, Tacitus, and Julius Caesar. This particular example was issued later, probably in 1639. It was engraved by Petrus Kaerius and published in Amsterdam by Jan Jansson. The longevity of the content reflects not only the high cost of producing ‘new’ maps, but also contemporary interest in Classical scholarship during the Renaissance and beyond.