The study analyses the notes written on the map of Bohemia and two Latin versions of the description of Bohemia in the first modern atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Abraham Ortelius. It examines the method of Ortelius’s work with cartographic material and his approach to the composition of the descriptive texts on the reverse sides, which he himself considered to be the main contribution of his atlas. The success of the atlas with its series of editions demonstrates the importance of the texts in their impact on the basic knowledge of regions and countries in early modern European society. The analysis of the two Latin versions of the description of Bohemia also proves Ortelius’s endeavor to update the information.
The map of Bohemia, published by Johann Criginger in 1568, was supplemented by Ortelius in his atlas with notes on some Czech towns and places, which he took from Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia. In the first Latin description of Bohemia, the author based his work primarily on Historia Bohemica by Annaeas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II), and in the second version, which appears in Theatrum Orbis Terrarum from the 1574 Latin edition, he takes the text from the recent Historiae Regni Boiemiae by Jan Dubravius. The annexes provide transcriptions of both of Ortelius’s versions of the characteristics of Bohemia.