This is possibly the only example of this map. Another, uncoloured, is housed at the Library of Congress.

The original copperplate used to print the original map was eventually replaced due to the map’s success. Three plates were used in all. The first featured a border of clouds running around the oval world map and was signed by the engraver Frans Hogenberg. A second plate appeared in 1586, in which the most obvious transformation is the corrected South American coastline, without the characteristic bulge of the first plate. The third, and last plate, is easily distinguished by the presence of four medallions, one in each corner, each bearing Stoic quotes from Cicero and Seneca. The border of clouds was replaced by a more formal Mannerist strapwork pattern, with floral swags. This last plate was used for all the final editions of Ortelius’s atlas from 1587 until the very last 'Theatrum' was published in 1612. On the Sunderland issue of the map, the engraving in the border has been 'darkened' with additional cross-hatching, and the geography of the map has been updated to include the appearance of the Solomon Islands, and the addition of Jacob Le Maire’s Strait at the tip of South.

The addition of the Le Maire Strait on this map relates to Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten’s attempt to discover an alternate entrance into the Pacific, because the Dutch East India Company (VOC) had an monopoly on passage through the Magellan Strait. In 1616, they sailed south around Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn, ignoring the century-old assumption that it was part of 'Terra Australis'. They successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean, but when they reached Batavia (modern day Jakarta) in Java, the local Dutch officials, loyal to the VOC, imprisoned them for their impertinence. Le Maire was sent back to Holland in chains and died en route.

The Sunderland Collection

This is a superb example of the exceptionally rare edition of Abraham Ortelius's world map because it was separately issued from his famous atlas, 'Theatrum Orbis Terrarum' ('Theatre of the World'), first published in 1570.

Along with Gemma Frisius and Gerard Mercator, Ortelius is generally considered as one of the founders of the Netherlandish School of Cartography and an important geographer of Spain during the age of European exploration and colonisation. This map is the second state of plate three of Ortelius’s world map, which was amended to incorporate new information about the Solomon Islands and Le Maire Strait.

Ortelius's landmark atlas 'Theatrum' introduced an entirely new and standardised method for the study of geography. For the first time in one volume, all parts of the globe were presented in a comprehensive and uniform manner, and it was the most complete depiction of the Earth achievable at the time.

Ortelius did not just publish editions in Latin - the traditional language of the scholarly elite - but also in the six major European vernacular languages: German, Dutch, French, Italian, English, and Spanish. The 'Theatrum' was therefore equally at home in the library of a scholar in Paris, a country gentleman in Kent, or a merchant in Grenada. This widespread dissemination had profound results in an age when geographical knowledge was in a rudimentary state; the information laid out in the ‘Theatrum’ became the universally accepted vision of the world.

Another strategy used to make the atlas more accessible to the public was the inclusion of beautiful embellishments in the popular mannerist style, thus appealing to contemporary aesthetic tastes and aligning the 'Theatrum' with the other great artistic accomplishments of the age.

The 'Theatrum' was the first major printed work of any kind to include scholarly citations of geographical authorities (i.e. the original mapmakers), thus introducing for the first time the concept of footnoting to Western scholarship. Ortelius also included a massive historical appendix (the 'Parergon'), consisting of a detailed Classical atlas, to appeal to Renaissance Europe's fascination with the ancient world.

This is the third and final edition of Ortelius’s celebrated world map which has been amended to incorporate new geographical information about the Solomon Islands and the Le Maire Strait.

The 'Unknown' Ortelius World Map