1595 / 1609 Ortelius - Teixiera Map of Japan and Korea

This is the 1606 second state of Ortelius' map of Japan and Korea, considered the earliest detailed printed map of Japan and Korea. This map is of fundamental importance: according to map historian Lutz Walter, 'A new epoch in Western cartography of Japan begins with the inclusion of this in the Theatrum … Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku are depicted with approximately correct proportions for the first time.' (Walter, L. Japan: A Cartographic Vision.)

The First Geographical Map of Japan

The source map was sent to Ortelius on February 20, 1592, by Luís Teixeira, court cartographer to the King of Spain. Teixeira's Portuguese Jesuit sources were informed by firsthand exploration of Japan during a period of extensive proselytizing. The map's placenames incorporate information from Japanese sources, but the cartography does not derive from contemporaneous Japanese maps. Japanese maps of Japan contemporaneous to Teixeira's map significantly differ from the present work. Credited in form to the 7th-8th century Buddhist Gyōgi Bosatsu, these maps presented the Japanese provinces in relation to each other and the capital. They did not attempt to accurately represent terrestrial geography (mountains, rivers, or islands) or cities. The Jesuit Alessandro Valignano, who visited Japan three times between 1579 and 1603, observed that while the Japanese had maps of their islands, the mapmakers lacked the methodology of measuring either latitude or longitude. As such, they could neither produce a precise, mathematical map of their islands, nor determine the position of Japan on the globe.

The placenames of Teixeira's map are derived from a Japanese source - almost certainly a Gyōgi-type map - but this map is distinctly the product of European geographical methodology. Its presentation of Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku is more accurate than any earlier Western map as well as any Japanese Gyōgi-type map.

Ortelius' earlier maps of the East Indies, Asia, China, and the world incorporated different depictions of Japan derived from Portuguese sources - notably charts of Bartolomeu Velho (c. 1560), and Fernão Vaz Dourado (1568). Teixeira's map was the first to provide Ortelius sufficient detail for a dedicated specific map of Japan, which served as the model for all European maps of Japan until 1655 Martino Martini's map. Teixiera's initial source is unknown, but Donald Lach (1965) suggests geographer Inácio Moreira, who visited Japan from 1584 to 1585.

Other Early Appearances of Teixeira's Japan

While Ortelius' map is the first dedicated entirely to Teixeira's depiction of Japan, it is not the first map in which that information appeared. Amsterdam cartographers Petrus Plancius and Arnold van Langren incorporated Teixeira's Japan into their 1594 respective world maps, Orbis Terrarum Typus and Typus Orbis Terrarum. Ortelius was almost certainly the first map publisher to receive Teixeira's data. It is unlikely Teixeira would have sent his information to either competing cartographer, as in 1575, Ortelius was appointed geographer to the King of Spain. Ortelius may have shared the new information with his Amsterdam colleagues, or possibly the data was purloined from his workshop. While the general shape of the Japanese islands on these maps corresponds superficially with Ortelius' map, they do not use the same placenames, following those used instead on Plancius' 1592 world map. This suggests that while Plancius and van Langren adapted the Teixeira information, they did not have access to the same depth of data.

Korea as an Island

One of the most striking and eagerly copied features of this map is the large, spearhead-shaped portrayal of Korea, and its prominent identification as 'Corea Insula' - the Island of Korea. This is the first of Ortelius' maps to include Korea in any form, pre-dated in this only by the above-mentioned Plancius and van Langren world maps. It appears on none of Ortelius' more general maps, not even his China, and it is absent from any of his known sources prior to the Teixeira map. Indeed, since Teixeira's manuscript has not survived, it is unknown whether the depiction of Korea is the result of his report or whether Ortelius included it from a different report. Neither the Plancius nor the van Langren maps show Korea as an island: on both, Korea appears as a slender peninsula.

It is fair to note that while Ortelius called Korea an island on the map, he did not depict it as one: the northern end runs off the top of the map, and its shoreline is not complete - leaving considerable ambiguity. Hondius, in his 1606 iteration of the map, completed the coastline while adding more descriptive text. In 1626, John Speed definitively portrayed Korea as an island.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved and first published in 1595 for Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. The present second-state example conforms to the 1609 Latin edition of the atlas published by Ortelius' executor, Vrients: examples of his atlases were famously well-colored. The separate map, in various editions, is well represented in institutional collections.