This work, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, was a great success, combining, for the first time, descriptive text with maps and being bound to form a book, for which copper printing plates were specifically engraved. However, more than an original concept, the Theatrum was also the most authoritative and successful such work during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As it was frequently revised to reflect new geographical and historical insights, contemporary scholars praised the Theatrum highly for its accuracy, even as they embraced the atlas's concept