Biographies of Some of the More Famous Cartographers

Matthias Quad (1557-1613) was a geographer, humanist and engraver who studied in Heidelberg and later worked from both Cologne and Heidelberg. Quad was an important figure in Cologne, publishing under a number of pseudonyms as well as his own name, during this early period and would certainly have come under the influence of Frans Hogenberg who engraved the maps for Ortelius' "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum" and who, with Georg Braun, involved Quad in engraving some of the maps in their great town book, the "Civitates Orbis Terrarum". Quad helped to establish Cologne as the centre of German map production and consequently established the city's important role in terms of European cartography at this time.

Quad was also responsible for some of the engraving of with Johannes Bussemacher for “Europae ... Descriptio” in 1596, this was expanded to become the “Geographisch Handtbuch” in 1600 with 82 maps and the “Fasciculus Geographicus” in 1608 with 86 maps.