Early modern atlases left the printer's workshop as a series of uncoloured projections surrounded by a textual apparatus. Translucent washes of blue, green, yellow, and pink were applied by professional illuminators on behalf of consumers. Different copies of the same edition often contained their own internal logic. These differences in colouring, though subtle, reflect remarkably divergent understandings of connected, entangled, and divided Central Europe. They suggest that the competing interpretations of culture, politics, and belonging that were discussed among humanists and ruling elites were being interpreted on the commercial book market for and by consumers. This article argues that historians need to take these differences seriously and systematically study the range of options available for colouring hand-painted atlases. Comparing the colouring of several examples of Europa and Germania from the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570), including a few whose original ownership is documented, I show how the political geography of atlas consumers was highly subjective, relational, and embedded in ongoing discourses about legitimacy, legal status, and notions of belonging. These political biases, humanistic arguments, and indeed the limits of geopolitical literacy are essential to understanding how central and eastern Europe was conceptualized, personalized, and rejected in paint.
Robyn Dora Radway (2026) studied this question.