Benedict. Arias Montanus Sacrae Geographiae Tabulam Ex Antiq

THE EXTREMELY RARE FIRST STATE landmark world map, famed for its depiction of the Australian landmass.

One of the earliest printed maps to depict the “terra incognita” of a then “undiscovered” Australia. The only similar printed map with claims to show Australia before the Dutch discoveries was a world map by the German theologian Heinrich Bünting in his Itinerarium in 1581. 

The map was edited by Benito Arias, known as Montanus after his birthplace. This well-engraved map appeared in Biblia Sacra, Hebraica... in 1572. The Polyglot Bible, with text in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Syriac was prepared under the patronage of Philip II of Spain and published between 1569 and 1572, with the printing being carried out by Plantin of Antwerp. 

This is the extremely rare first edition and first state of the Arias Montanus Orbis Tabula or Map of the World, engraved in 1571, and published in 1572.
This state of the map is very rare since a shipment of bibles, including this map, were lost in a storm in the North Sea, sailing on route from Flanders (XVII Provinces) to the north coast of Spain.

The maps from the first edition have been printed on the reverse "Orbis Tabula. Ben. Aria Montano. Auctore". 

The bibles in question -the Biblia Regia - were the monumental royal polyglot bibles prepared by friar Benito Arias Montanus, an eminent Spanish theologist, part-time librarian at the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial near Madrid and confident of Spanish King Philip II.

The map ORBIS TABULA by Montanus, was included in the final volume of this huge bible, Volume VIII or Apparatus. Apparently, of this VOLUME VIII only 500 copies were printed by Plantin in 1571-1572. 

Montanus got access to “updated” geographical information while attending, as a Spanish delegate, the third session of the Council of Trent in northern Italy (1562-1564).

The map includes Hebrew and Latin (for the identification and numeric worldwide-location of the descendants of Noah) and ancient Greek (indicating the wind denominations).

The map tells the aftermath of God’s punishment (the language confusion) followed by the exile and dispersion from Babylon of the sons of Noah after they dared to build the Tower of Babel.

As a catholic apologist to Philip King of Spain and his brutal general the Duke of Alva in the persecution of protestant heretics in the Low Countries (then under Spanish Rule) , Benito Arias Montanus shows in this map that – according to his interpretation – due to his novel geographical eastern landmass connection between Asia and America, the treasures of Paradise Lost finally ended up in the newfound Spanish Eldorado (with the mines of Potosi as epicentre) in America, guarded by the descendants of Sem.

And that gold, silver and jewels would provide the Spanish Habsburg Dynasty (the descendants of Japhet) with the necessary means not only to stem the spread of the protestant virus but to join the world in an “all-catholic” empire (a “universe”, where the sun did not go down) since a new and costly crusade was needed to liberate Jerusalem of any “infidels” and prepare for the Second Coming of Christ. 

Also, the intriguing thing about this map is an unexplained landmass, suggesting Portuguese knowledge of the northern coastline of Australia long before the official discovery by the Dutch of Australia in 1606.

All the above indicates that this map in the first state is a very important item for any serious map collection of “Australia” and/or “Geografia Sacra”.

The map offered here is the first state of the map as commented by Shirley in his monumental work “The Mapping of the World”:

The map from the first edition, of which the greater number of impressions were lost at sea on route for Spain, has printed on the reverse Orbis Tabula. Ben. Aria Montano. Auctore. In state 2 the word gentes has been added below the word Iektan in the lower left panel. Mr Tully of Australia has advised me of a second plate with minor but significant differences in treatment. The date (1571) is now placed centrally to conclude the title, lektan is spelled Ioktan, and the cherub at the head of the western hemisphere is unambiguously gazing to the left compared to the frontwards look of the same cherub in plate 1.

The map was widely admired throughout the succeeding century."

The loss of most examples of the first state in a shipwreck resulted in only a handful of examples of this map appearing on the market in the last decades: for instance, Martayan Lan for $20,000 in 2003, Arkway for $18,000 in 2006 and Ruderman for $ 24,500 presently.

Montanus 

(supposedly a Marrano or falsely reconverted jew) was also an excellent linguist and polyglot, and his polyglot bible also called the Biblia sacra hebraice chaldaice, graece et latine , also known as the Biblia Regia or Royal Bible contained five languages : Syriac, Latin, Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew. The Montanus bible was supposed to be an improvement on the Complutensian Polyglot Bible or Alcala Bible, first published in 1520 near Madrid and promoted by catholic Cardenal Cisneros to please and help emperor Charles V (father of Philip II) in his struggles against the “infidels”.

As from 1568, Montanus spent several years in Antwerp, residing in the Officina Plantiniana, or the printing press of Christophe Plantin, who was the greatest typographer and printer-publisher of his day. Plantin, as the official printer of Spanish King Philip II, or Prototypographus Regius , then held the monopoly on printing religious works for the expanding Spanish, European and colonial market.

Indeed, these multi-lingual bibles, basically still promoting the official Vulgata-version, were supposed to be distributed all over the Spanish Empire as to facilitate the universal conversion of “unbelievers” (who did not necessarily mastered Latin) to the one and only true Catholic faith. A rare copy of Montanus’s polyglot eight Volumes Bible including this world map in the first state, was acquired at auction by the Phoebus Foundation in the year 2018 for $700,000.

Reference: Shirley, World 125, Clancy, Map 5.7.