La Croix - Geographie Universele - 1717

TRA TERRA E STELLE, MAPPE, SFERE E MEMORIA: THE ORDER OF THE COSMOS
A surprisingly ambitious work, Nouvelle methode pour aprendre la geographie universele by A. Pherotee La Croix fully fits into the tradition of French pedagogical geography from the 17th and 18th centuries, but expands its conceptual horizon to transform a school manual into a small cosmographic encyclopedia. In a portable format, intended for students and non-specialist readers, the work organizes geographical knowledge according to a progressive, clear, and systematic method, based on the balance between text and image. The numerous folded plates, including terrestrial maps, a globe, and celestial charts, do not play an ornamental role but a structural one: they are mnemonic tools, visual devices for learning, and at the same time objects of wonder. The book thus becomes a miniature theater of the world, where the Earth and the heavens are reduced to an order that is readable, classifiable, and teachable.
MARKET VALUE
Complete five-volume series are today rare and sought after, especially if integral with all folded plates, which are frequently lacerated or lost. Incomplete exemplars, such as the present one (4 volumes of 5), nevertheless retain significant collectible interest for the iconographic quality of the engravings and for the editorial coherence of the whole. In similar conditions, market value is roughly between 500 and 700 euros, with notable fluctuations depending on the condition of bindings, the freshness of the plates, the actual completeness of the plates, and the structural solidity of the volumes. Complete and well-preserved copies can fetch well beyond these estimates.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Four of five volumes. Contemporary full-leather bindings, spines ornamented in gold with title, decorated compartments, red sprayed edges. Frontispieces printed in red and black. Overall 49 copper-engraved plates, many of them folded multiple times; of particular note are the celestial charts and the globe, which constitute the work’s most spectacular iconographic core. Maps with some browning, sporadic losses and wear to the bindings; several plates partially detached. Overall solid structure but with signs of use consistent with age and the educational function of the volume. Pp. 14nn; 402; 6nn; (2). (2); 2nn; 422; 10nn; (2). (2); 2nn; 490; 6nn; (2). (2); 2nn, 436; (2).
In old books, with a long, multi-century history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Nouvelle methode pour aprendre la geographie universele.
Lyon, Chez Jacques Lions & Louis Bruyset, 1717.
A. Pherotee La Croix.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
La Nouvelle methode falls within the lineage of works intended for progressive teaching of geography, widespread in France between the 17th and 18th centuries in a context of rising literacy and reform of educational curricula. The method adopted by La Croix favors expository clarity, systematic subdivision by continents, kingdoms, and provinces, and the constant integration of textual description with graphical representation. Cartography is not merely an illustrative support but a pedagogical device: the maps function as visual schemes capable of fixing in memory names, borders, and spatial relations. The inclusion of celestial plates and the globe reveals a still-unitary conception of geographical and cosmographic knowledge, in which the description of the Earth intertwines with the structure of the sky, following a tradition rooted in Aristotelian and Ptolemaic cosmology, yet updated with modern knowledge. The work thus represents a significant transitional moment between the erudite geography of monumental atlases and the school manual aimed at a broader audience.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
A. Pherotee La Croix was active in France from the late 17th to the early 18th century as a compiler and popularizer of geographic and educational texts. His works are characterized by a systematic and didactic aim: to make accessible knowledge traditionally reserved for specialists by organizing it in a clear, progressive, and memorizable form. In an era when geography played a central role in shaping the administrative and commercial elites, La Croix contributed to the diffusion of concise yet conceptually structured manuals capable of synthesizing vast horizons of knowledge.

BIOGRAPHY OF ARISTOTLE
Aristotle was born at Stagira in 384 BCE and died at Chalkis in 322 BCE. A philosopher and scientist of antiquity, he developed an encyclopedic vision of knowledge that profoundly influenced geography, cosmology, and the natural sciences up to modern times. His conception of the cosmos as an ordered, hierarchical, knowable system provided for centuries the theoretical backbone of world representation. Even in early 18th-century geographical manuals, echoes of this idea of universal order persist, making the description of the Earth part of a larger cosmological framework.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Printed in Lyon in 1717 by Jacques Lions and Louis Bruyset, the work was conceived in multiple volumes to favor gradual and modular learning. The small format responded to practical needs: maneuverability, portability, and relatively low cost compared to large folio atlases. The educational print runs, often heavily used in schools, explain the current rarity of complete and well-preserved sets. The folded plates, a distinctive feature of the edition, are frequently missing or damaged, making exemplars that retain them integral especially prized.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU/OPAC SBN: Lyon edition of 1717, records to be verified with precise collation and plate count
BnF, Catalogue général, notices relating to Pherotee La Croix and Lyon editions of Bruyset (early 18th century)
WorldCat, Nouvelle methode pour apprendre la géographie universelle, Lyon, 1717, records of copies in European libraries
Pastoureau, Mireille, Les atlas français XVIe–XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, sections devoted to didactic cartographic production
Shirley, Rodney W., The Mapping of the World, London, 1983, for the context of the world maps and celestial charts engraved between the 17th and 18th centuries
Koeman, C., Atlantes Neerlandici, for the comparative frame of contemporary European cartographic production
Skelton, R. A., Decorative Printed Maps of the 15th to 18th Centuries, London, 1952, for the iconographic framing of celestial charts and world maps for didactic use