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Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0 · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileThe geographer is depicted with a long white beard and a scholar's cap, gesturing with mathematical dividers toward a globe showing the American continent. He is framed within an inscribed oval border set against a hatched background, with a decorative cartouche at the bottom providing biographical details. The fine lines of the engraving emphasize the texture of his fur-lined garment and the precise geographical details of the globe.
Mercator was a central figure in Renaissance natural philosophy, whose 'Atlas' was intended as a philosophical and cosmographic meditation on the 'fabric of the world.' His work represents the era's drive to harmonize mathematical precision with the divine order of the cosmos.
ÆTATIS SVÆ LXII. Magna Pelusiacis debetur gratia chartis: Magna tibi priscum tandem superasse laborem, Mercator, tractusque nouos, terræque, marisque Monstrasse, et magnum quod continet omnia cælum. I. Vivian. ludeb: GERARDI MERCATORIS RVPELMVNDANI EFFIGIEM ANNOR. DVORVM ET SEXAGINTA, SVI ERGA IPSVM STVDII CAVSA DEPINGI CVRABAT FRANC. HOG. CIƆ. IƆ. LXXIV.
Translation
OF HIS AGE 62. Great thanks are owed to the Pelusiac papers: great thanks to you for having at last overcome the ancient labor, Mercator, and for having shown new regions, and of earth, and of sea, And the great heaven which contains all things. I. Vivian. ludeb: FRANC. HOG. CAUSED THE EFFIGY OF GERARD MERCATOR OF RUPELMONDE, AGED SIXTY-TWO YEARS, TO BE PAINTED FOR THE SAKE OF HIS DEVOTION TO HIM. 1574.
Gerardus Mercator
The subject is the author of the 'Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi', which links geography to Neoplatonic concepts of cosmic structure.
Object
Engraving
portrait
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
http://hdl.handle.net/1887.1/item:1625756
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
2420 × 3158 px
df3d025bce18050863d11e132d50aeebcf799b7e
February 7, 2021
March 23, 2026
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 1, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.