Kenilworth Castle in 1575
Robert Dudley's Kenilworth Art Collection
51-73. Twentie-three cards or maps of Countries.
51. 1570 England, Scotland and Ireland; the British Isles, a copy of Mercator Britain, by Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), a friend and rival of Gerard Mercator. The fame of Mercator rests primarily on the map projection named after him, which, although not entirely original, first appeared in print in his world map of 1569.
52. This 1569 Mercator world map, a ‘Description of the Earth for Use in Navigation’, used a projection that lengthened the parallels north and south of the equator, resulting in a flat map allowing navigators to plot long distances using a straight line. Adopted almost universally by European navigators, and later adapted by nineteenth century atlases.
53. In 1564, Gerard Mercator (1512-1594), the Dutch cartographer, published a detailed map of the British Isles on eight sheets, probably based, despite Mercator's opposing views, on surveys by John Elder (a disreputable Scottish Catholic priest) that were intended to assist an invasion of England.
54. 1572 Typus Orbis Terrarum (Image of the World) by Abraham Ortelius is one of the most important and widely disseminated maps of the second half of the 16th Century, forming the basis for many other contemporary maps. This map was in turn based on the maps of Gerard Mercator, Jacobus Gastaldi and Diego Gutierrez.
55. Map of Leicestershire, with the name and crest of Robert Dudley incorporated bottom left. Military surveyors were able to draft plans and topographical maps to scale by the 1540s. Dudley amassed a large collection of maps, with over sixty more at his other properties: Leicester House, London, and Wanstead Manor, Essex.
56. The city of London, hand coloured, c1572, from Braun & Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum, based on a now-lost twenty-sheet plan of London believed to have been made between 1547 and 1559. Tudor London with its suburbs extends outside the city walls. The two panels of text describe the vibrant economy of the city.
57. 1570 Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Theatre of the World) Atlas by Abraham Ortelius. This atlas was a great commercial success, outperforming competing atlases from other cartographers, such as the Mercator family. Between 1570 and 1612, thirty-one editions of the atlas were published in seven languages.
74. The picture of Mistress Elizabethe Knowles.
Oil on panel portrait, by George Gower, of Elizabeth Knollys (1549-1605), one of fifteen children of Sir Francis Knollys, and younger sister to Dudley’s wife Lettice. A Maid of Honour and Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber to Queen Elizabeth, and staunchly protestant, she married Sir Thomas Leighton, who served as Governor of Jersey and Guernsey.
75. A picture of Ceser enamiled in brasse
Gaius Julius Caesar, the Roman politician and military general who played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. He was the first Roman general to cross both the English Channel and the Rhine River, and also famously ‘crossed the Rubicon’ - illegally entering Italy with his army.
