Ortelius, Peregrinationis Divi Pauli Typus Chorographicus (1579)

This engraved map, *Peregrinationis Divi Pauli Typus Chorographicus* — "a chorographic depiction of the wanderings of the divine Paul" — is among the earliest maps devoted specifically to the travels of the Apostle Paul. It was made by the Antwerp geographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), whose *Theatrum Orbis Terrarum* (1570) is generally regarded as the first modern atlas. (Scholarship)

What it shows

The map traces Paul's Mediterranean journeys as narrated in the Acts of the Apostles — from the eastern seaboard of Asia Minor and Syria, across the Aegean and the Greek mainland, to Italy and the shipwreck at Malta (Acts 27-28). Around the central geography Ortelius set small inset vignettes of scenes from the apostle's life. The eastern portion of the sheet takes in Cilicia and its coastal plain, the region of Paul's birthplace at Tarsus. (Scholarship) The map renders, in a single early-modern image, the same connected itinerary that the narrative of Acts reports for the missionary journeys.

History of the plate

Ortelius issued the map in the *Parergon*, the historical-geographical supplement he added to editions of the *Theatrum*, in which he mapped the ancient and biblical world rather than the contemporary one. The plate is commonly dated to about 1579; the impression digitised here comes from the 1606 London edition published in English as *The Theatre of the Whole World*. (Scholarship) It survives in the Eran Laor Cartographic Collection of the National Library of Israel and is in the public domain by age.

Relevance to Paul and Tarsus

As a visual companion to Acts, the map fixes the geography of Paul's mission in a form recognisable to modern readers, and it places Cilicia and Tarsus within the wider arc of his travels. For the road corridor by which Paul crossed the Taurus between Cilicia and the Anatolian interior, compare the Tabula Peutingeriana. To learn where the apostle's home city lies today, see where Tarsus is.

The living memory of that journey is what St Paul Global Week marks. On 28-30 June 2027, around the 29 June Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, a faith-tourism gathering organised by Funny Tourism will bring pilgrims to Tarsus and Mersin. You are warmly invited to explore the programme and to read why Tarsus.