Andreas Lambert
Back to people overviewAndreas Lambert was a well-known publisher from Cologne.
With the help of Bertram Buchholtz and Gottfried von Kempen, Lambert transformed Cologne into one of Europe’s great mapmaking centres. His work had a profound effect on the cartographic literacy of the public.
In 1596, Lambert created a beautiful world map called the ‘Typus Orbis Terrarum’. It used Mercator’s planisphere projection and is inscribed with a quotation from the classical thinker, Cicero, which prompted the beholder to ruminate on their mortality. The map includes a series of fictional islands around Greenland: Groclant, Thule and Friesland. Complete with a colossal sea monster and other fictional places recorded by Marco Polo in Southeast Asia, the map depicts the world as immense and even mythical.
