Another even more popular legend speaks about the Greek mythological character of Atlas, the son of Titan Iapetus and Oceanid Asia, who was condemned to bear the burden of celestial sphere on his shoulders by the Greek God of Zeus. The legend goes on to state that Heracles approached Atlas, holding the world, and tempted him into collecting the apples of Hesperides by offering a temporary reprieve from the burden of heavens in the meantime. Atlas readily agreed to the same but on returning with the apples he wished to escape his condemned fate, but, understanding his intent well, Heracles used a little tact to leave Atlas holding up the world once again. Yet another version of the same legend says that Heracles instead erected the two Pillars of Hercules, to end the punishment of Atlas, holding world forever. It is suggested that historically, Antonia Lafreri was the first person to associate a collection of maps with the Greek legend of Titan Atlas and from 16th century onwards, any cartographic collection came to be known as Atlas. Commonly, the globe depicted in the caricatures of Atlas holding up the world is mistaken as earth in what is actually supposed to be the celestial sphere.
The first printed Atlas of the world was from the geographical texts of legendary geographer Claudius Ptolemy circa 150 A.D. which includes a set of 27 maps drawn by Ptolemy himself. There is some confusion in this relation about whether these world atlas maps are reproductions of the maps contained in the original manuscripts or were taken from earlier reproductions of the original maps by some medieval geographers. The first edition of this Atlas of world was published in 1477 in Bologna and some people believe that in this Atlas,
world maps
might have been engraved by Taddeo Crivelli. In any case, however, this antiquarian world map Atlas was completely out of date with the later Portuguese and Spanish discoveries. Other major shortcomings included traditional misconceptions related to the world geography, a striking example of which can be found in the depiction of west-east orientation of Scotland in the maps of British Isles.Slowly, however, cartographers started introducing corrections in the further reproductions of any classical atlas, world globe, map, etc. A good example of this can be found in an edition of “Geographia,” a celebrated work of Ptolemy, published in 1513, where Martin Waldseemuller had included 20 additional maps of a relatively modern origin. The process of integrating updated information in older maps continued unabated to make a large world Atlas, some peculiar problems arose for the students of maps. The problem arose due to the apparent lack of uniformity of sizes of various maps which made the rolling and unrolling of large maps very difficult and handling maps in general became a contentious issue. It was the Flemish map-maker Abraham Ortelius who came up with a solution by publishing his historical work “Theatrum Orbis Terrarum” with 53 uniform-sized map sheets in his atlas map of the world. A world Atlas with uniform sized maps was a major breakthrough for cartographers and geographers alike.
It was only much later that an exact world atlas with latitude and longitude was drawn up although world atlas with north, south, east, and west degrees were being drawn up earlier but with far less accuracy. For all, the world Atlas was a major creative achievement in the progress of human civilization which symbolizes the undying spirit of adventure, exploration and intellectual growth. In a world Atlas, encyclopedia of the geographical, political and cultural information can be found which serves a number of purposes. Nowadays, free world atlases are easily available on the world wide web which can be a great source of entertainment and information for anyone interested enough. To download a world atlas free of cost, simply search for the same on the internet. With a careful study of Atlas, world geography can easily be explored by anyone.
