Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598) was a cartographer, goegrapher and cosmographer from Antwerp.He is recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, which appeared in 1570 in 70 maps (on 53 sheets) engraved by Franz Hogenberg. In it, as in previous Italian collections (Venetian and Roman), the Ptolemaic maps are eliminated and only maps by contemporary authors are included, whose name is almost always indicated on each map.