Folio. 15 pp., Preface, [11 Animadversiones, (notes)] / Index Gepgraphicus et Explicatio Regionum, & Locorum Omnium: 111 pp., / Joannis Clerici Notae in Indicem Geographicum Nic Samsonis: 16 pp., / Judea & Jesu Christi Salvatoris Nostri Vita: 51 pp., [1], engraved title page, foxed outside the illustration border, 4 double-page engraved maps, of which 3 are engraved by F. Halma, the maps are the Francois Halma reissues of Sanson's maps from 1683, contemporary calf, rubbed, marked and soiled, title label on raised & gilt decorated spine, title in black and red ink, title vignette, spine extremities lightly cracked, some pages slightly browned, bookplate of John Marques of Tueeddale Earle of Gifford Viscount Walden, Lord of Hay and Yester &c. verso front cover, Excudit Franciscus Halma Typograph, Amsterdam, first edition, 1704.

Synopsis

Nicolas Sanson 1600-1667…”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..” [Pastoureau Sanson-VD; Shirley T. SAN-2b. Catalogued by Kate Hunter].
Bibliographic references: Rohricht 1129; Laor 692; Tobler 212; Furst III 244.