Gerardus Mercator

Timeline

1. 1534–1552Louvain · LouvainIn 1534 he returned to Louvain to study applied mathematics with Gemma Frisius and learned engraving and instrument making under Gaspar van der Heyden. Between 1535 and 1541 he helped make globes and celestial globes, and between 1537 and 1540 published maps of Palestine, the world, and Flanders. In 1544 he was imprisoned for about seven months at Rupelmonde castle on suspicion of heresy; after release he continued fulfilling instrument orders, in 1551 completing a celestial globe with star positions corrected to the Copernican system, and moved to Duisburg the following year.
2. 1552–1569Duisburg · DuisburgHe opened a cartographic workshop in Duisburg in 1552 and completed a large new map of Europe in 1554, reestablishing his standing in European cartography. In 1564 he drew maps of Lorraine and the British Isles and was appointed court cosmographer to William, Duke of Cleves. In 1569 he published the eighteen-sheet Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigatlonem, first systematically employing a conformal cylindrical projection that rendered rhumb lines as straight lines, facilitating compass navigation.
3. 1578–1594Duisburg · DuisburgIn 1578 he first published a corrected set of Ptolemy maps as the first part of his 'atlas' project. In 1585 he followed with maps of France, Germania, and the Netherlands, and in 1589 with regional maps of the Balkans, Greece, and elsewhere. He was the first to call a collection of maps an 'Atlas'. After a stroke in 1590 his work was impeded, and the unfinished sheets were assembled and published by his son Rumold in 1595.