Gerardus Mercator
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Gerardus Mercator
after Unknown artist
line engraving, after 1593
5 5/8 in. x 4 1/4 in. (142 mm x 108 mm) plate size; 7 3/8 in. x 6 1/4 in. (186 mm x 159 mm) paper size
Given by Henry Witte Martin, 1861
Reference Collection
NPG D20942
Sitterback to top
- Gerardus Mercator (1512-1594), Flemish geographer, mathematician and cartographer. Sitter in 8 portraits.
Events of 1593back to top
Current affairs
Plays and games are banned because of the Plague, which had killed 15,000 people in London the previous year.Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex is made a Privy Councillor.
The theologian Richard Hooker publishes Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the first systematic defence of the principals of the Elizabethan Church.
Art and science
The playwright Christopher Marlowe dies after receiving a stab wound in a tavern brawl.William Shakespeare writes the epic poem Venus and Adonis.
The group portrait of Sir Thomas More with his family and descendants is painted by Rowland Lockey. It is partly copied from an earlier portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (1527-8).
International
Henry IV of France converts from Protestantism to Catholicism to secure the support of the majority of his subjects.The Convention of Uppsala demands that Sigismund III of Poland accepts Lutheranism as the national Religion of Sweden.
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