Rumold Mercator (
Leuven
Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic c ...
, 1541 –
Duisburg
Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in ...
, 31 December 1599) was a
cartographer
Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an ...
and the son of cartographer
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented ...
.
He completed some at the time
unfinished projects left after his father's death and added new materials of his own research.
Biography
Rumold Mercator was the youngest son of cartographer Gerardus Mercator and his first wife Barbara Schellekens. He rose to fame in his father's wake when, in 1587, he published a copy of his father's
Ptolemaic map of the world from 1569, revised in its overall graphic design.
In 1595, a year after his father's death, Rumold Mercator published a supplement of 34 maps to his father's ''Tabulae Geographicae'' map book.
It contains 29 maps, engraved by Gerardus Mercator, of the missing parts of Europe (Iceland, the British Isles and the Northern and Eastern European countries).
To complete the map collection quickly, Rumold added his own world map from 1587 and had four maps of the continents from his father's large world map from 1569 copied by his nephews Gerardus Mercator junior and Michael Mercator, sons of
Arnold Mercator
Arnold or Arnoldus Mercator (Leuven, 31 August 1537 – Duisburg, 6 July 1587) was a Southern Netherlandish cartographer, mathematician and classical philologist. He was the eldest son of cartographer Gerardus Mercator and a brother of Rumold Merc ...
. The title page was also an emergency solution: it is the title of the Ptolemy edition of 1578, on which the new title was pasted in letterpress.
Rumold Mercator also released a 'complete edition' with all 107 maps. In fact, this edition is no more than a single-bound reissue of the four series ''Tabulae Geographicae'' with the new addition.
References
1545 births
1599 deaths
16th-century Flemish cartographers
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