A FINE COMPOSITE ATLAS OF FRENCH AND DUTCH MAPS.

Folio (17 2/8 x 12 4/8 inches). 19th-century French manuscript table of contents tipped-in at the beginning. 138 fine double-page engraved maps (some browning and light spotting, a few edges frayed). 19th-century plain linen (a bit worn, endpapers renewed). A fine composite atlas compiled before 1658 when Sanson's business partner Mariette issued the first French world atlas with the engraved title "Cartes Generales de Toutes les Parties du Monde". The majority of the maps are compiled by Nicolas Sanson who first published his atlas in 1654, with 100 maps, and engraved and printed by Pierre Mariette; each held the copyright to half of the maps which bear their separate imprints, and were issued progressively from 1630. These maps are supplemented by a large number of regional maps not available in Paris, but published in Amsterdam by Hondius, Jansson and Danckerts, demonstrating the close links between the two mapping centers of Europe: Paris and Amsterdam, each looking to the other to supply what they were unable to. The Dutch maps in this atlas include some important maps related to America: "Nova Virginiae Tabula", Virginiae partis australia, et Floridae partis.", and "Nova Anglia Novum Belgium et Virginia" by Hondius and Jansson. The map of the Magellan Straits "Freti Magellanici" is the very rare issue with the signature of Jodocus Hondius (1629) indicating that the map was bought on an early buying trip to Amsterdam. Other maps related to America are "Mappe-Mode." 1651, "L'Hydrographie ou Description de l'Eau" (1652), "Amerique Septentrionale" (1650, Burden 294, state 2), Boisseau's "Description de la Nouvelle France" (Burden 261, state 1), Hondius and Jansson's "Nova Hispania", Duval's "Isles d'Amerique dites Caribes.", Mariette's "Isle de Guadeloupe", and "Isle de Martinique", Sanson's "Amerique Meridionale", Jansson's "Venezuela" and "Peru", Duval's "La Guyane", Jansson's "Accuratissima Brasiliae Tabula" and "Chili". This, the most comprehensive French folio atlas of this date, contains an unprecedented number of maps of foreign countries, including a number that are extremely rare: Boisseau"s "Description de la Nouvelle France" (1643), in the first state, is the first printed map to illustrate and name all five Great lakes; and his map of Malta, Gozo & Comino (1645); Duval's "Isles d'Amerique dites Caribes", and "la Guyane"; and Sanson and Mariett'e own "Estats de l'Empire dess Turqs en Europe", "Description de la Tartarie", "Carte des Trois Arabies", "L'Inde", "Les Iles Philippines", their maps of the African regions, all early strikes showing fine plate-tone. Born in Abbeville, a town in the Picardy region of France, in 1600, Sanson was the most noted French cartographer in modern history. Mapmaker to Louis XIV, King of France, Sanson endowed his maps with the most recent geographical information as well as the finest and sharpest engraving of the period. His "Cartes Generales de Toutes les Parties du Monde" was the most important single product of French commercial cartography of the seventeenth century. Sanson sparked a renaissance in geographical endeavor in his native country, which had not been a major player on the international cartographic stage since the great Oronce Finé in the sixteenth century. With this atlas, Sanson laid the foundations of French domination in map production, initiating the so-called "French school of cartography," a school that was unprecedented in its attention to precision and scientific detail and discarded much of the decorative embellishments of previous maps as irrelevant. From Sanson's time in the second half of the seventeenth century until the latter part of the eighteenth century, French geographical conceptions were more influential than those put forward by any other nation. With this landmark atlas, Sanson all but single-handedly caused the center of cartographic innovation to shift from Holland to France. Catalogued by Kate Hunter.…