New to this edition are the maps of Flanders and Brabant. The text on the map of Valencia has been censored with a patch, erasing the text on the practice of Islam in Spain this is the final edition of the text in which this passage appeared. It has an early Spanish provenance, with marginal comments in Spanish and Latin.
The present edition contains 108 maps in the Theatrum as well as the 26 maps and views of the Parergon, all in contemporary hand-coloring. The maps and plates in the Parergon may be considered "the most outstanding engravings depicting the wide-spread interest in classical geography in the 16th century" (Van der Krogt). Plantin took over publication of new editions in 1579 and began to incorporate the supplemental Parergon and Nomenclator Ptolemaicus. The first edition came out in 1570 with 50 maps, and as cartographic knowledge increased, so did the number of maps in each subsequent edition. It was the most expensive book of its day, and yet also one of the bestsellers, going into 37 editions and 7 languages. The major innovation of the Theatrum was to provide, in a single volume, accurate modern maps in a uniform, regular format, together with explanatory text. Ortelius's atlas "set a standard by which subsequent collections would be judged and compared" (Short). The first modern world atlas, hand-colored and heightened in gold-the watershed of Renaissance cartography.
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