Lambert’s map is known to have been issued separately, with a sub- title: ‘Partitio Magnitudinus Universi Orbis...Cologne, Lambertus Andreas 1596’. However, most examples were issued in translations of the ‘popular politico-geographical’ book by Jesuit scholar and renowned economist Giovanni Botero (1533–1617), ‘Theatrum oder Schauspiegel’, first published without maps in 1591.

’s world map of 1569, and retains the bulge in the coastline of Chile in South America. The southernmost regions of the world are covered by the large landmass of ‘Terra Australis’, New Guinea is correctly shown as a separate island, and the depiction of the East Indies includes the 'discoveries' of Marco Polo. The work is very similar to another world map by Matthias Quad published in the same year, and there is some debate about exactly which map came first. Further muddying the water, 

 was a collaborator of publisher Johann Bussemacher, the individual responsible for the maps in Quad's 1596 work, …‘Europae Totius Terrarum Orbis Partis Praestantissimae’ (‘A General and Particular Description of Europe, the Most Excellent Part of the World’).

The Sunderland Collection

Lambert Andreas (fl.1590–1598) created this small world map in minute detail. The engraving is incredibly fine, with myriad geographical features and a huge sea monster rampaging in the oceans. The map is derived from various earlier sources, most notably Gerard Mercator's world map of 1569.

Andreas was a well-known publisher who helped to establish Cologne one of the great map centres of Europe. The small size of atlases, lowering the cost, and increasing ease of publication enabled a significant increase among those members of the public able to acquire maps.

During the 1570s, Antwerp had been the dominant centre for map production in North-western Europe, but after the Habsburg invasion in 1585, Leiden, Cologne, and Duisburg grew in prominence, as skilled craftsmen and publishers fled religious persecution. While Lambert resided in Cologne, the city established itself as one of the great map centres of Europe in the last three decades of the sixteenth century. His atlases were presented in a generally small format and had a profound effect on the development of a map-reading public.

A fine world map from Cologne, published at the height of the city’s prominence as a centre for map production. Based on Gerard Mercator’s eponymous projection, it includes a legend that notes that the circumference of the Earth is equal to 5,400 German miles. Using the Imperial German mile, this would make the circumference of the Earth a creditable 25,380 English miles, as opposed to 24,901, the circumference in reality.

Andreas Lambert's World Map