This beautifully hand coloured original antique map of the mid Atlantic Azores Islands was published by Abraham Ortelius in the 1592 Latin edition of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
Ortelius published a total of 4425 of this map between 1584 to 1612.
Background: The map covers the Azores in considerable detail with numerous ships decorating the seas and a large sea serpent just west of St. Michael. The detail and overall beauty of Ortelius' map is reflective of the importance of the Azores to 16th and 17th century navigators. Columbus stopped, and was briefly imprisoned, here on his first voyage of discovery to the Americas. Other navigators followed his example until the islands became a major resupply point on the Spanish Galleon routes to and from the New World.
Ortelius derived this map from Luis Teixeira's single sheet map of Terceira from 1582, which bears Ortelius' name and of which Meurer mentions one copy at the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris (Meurer p. 253-254).
This map first appeared in the 1584 Latin edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
Background: For the first time, in 1570, all the elements of the modern Atlas were brought to publication  in Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. This substantial undertaking assembled fifty-three of the best available maps of the world by the most renowned and up to date geographers.
Unlike earlier compositions, such as the Italian composite or "Lafreri" Atlases, each of Ortelius' maps was engraved specifically for his Atlas according to uniform format. Through its launching, pre-eminence in map publishing was transferred from Italy to the Netherlands, leading to over a hundred years of Dutch supremacy in all facts of cartographical production.
There were a total of 7300 copies of Theatrum  published between 1570 - 1612 from 31 editions. (Ref: Van Den Broecke; Tooley)

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