Planisfero - .; Sanson / Mariette - Mappe-Monde, ou Carte générale du Monde, dessinée en deux plan-hémisphères - 1651

Technical data

Title: World Map, or General Map of the World, drawn in two planisphere halves
Author: Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville (1600–1667)
Engraver: Rivière, active in the 17th century
Designer: Nicolas Sanson
Publisher: Pierre Mariette (1603–1657), under the sign of L’Espérance
Place: Paris, Rue Saint-Jacques
Epoch: 1651
Technique: Copperplate engraving on copper, predominantly burin-engraving
Support: Vellum paper
Dimensions: sheet 54 × 40.5 cm; plate impression 52.5 × 37.5 cm
Inscriptions: at the top the title and author’s name; at the bottom center: “À Paris, chez P. Mariette, rue St. Jacques à l’Espérance. Avec Privilège du Roy pour vingt ans. 1651”; at bottom right: “Rivière sculp.”
Composition: a sheet with a world map arranged in two adjacent hemispheres; central editorial fold
Verso: white

Description

Important sixteenth-century-style world map by Nicolas Sanson, published in Paris by Pierre Mariette in 1651 and engraved by Rivière. The representation is organized according to the classic two-hemisphere structure: the western hemisphere, on the left, includes the Americas and part of the Pacific Ocean; the eastern hemisphere, on the right, depicts Europe, Africa, Asia, and the then partially known lands of the southern hemisphere.

The map effectively documents the state of European geographical knowledge in the mid-17th century. California is depicted as a large island, in line with one of the era’s most famous and persistent cartographic conventions, with its northern coastline almost straight. To the northwest appear Nouvelle Albion and Sierra Nevada, while the Great Lakes are still incompletely defined and open to the west.

Particularly significant is the southern hemisphere configuration. Australia is only partially delineated and includes the coast labeled Beach, connected ideally to the vast and hypothetical Terra Australis Magellanica et Inconnue. New Zealand and Van Diemen’s Land have not yet been represented. The relief is conventionally rendered with small mountain profiles, while the dense grid of meridians, parallels, tropics and polar circles gives the composition a rigorous and clearly legible structure.

The decorative apparatus is deliberately sober: the map’s interest lies primarily in the precision of the engraving, the density of toponymy, and the balanced monumental quality of the two hemispheres.

Historical-artistic note

Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville is regarded as the leading exponent of the French cartographic school of the 17th century and a pivotal figure in transferring cartographic editorial primacy from the Netherlands to France. Appointed Geographe ordinaire du Roi, he developed a cartography characterized by graphic clarity, scientific order, and restraint of purely ornamental elements.

His collaboration with the Paris publisher Pierre Mariette, begun around 1648, made possible the systematic publication of his maps and their subsequent collection in Cartes générales de toutes les parties du monde. The present world map, dated 1651, belongs to the first edition of the map and stands as one of the most representative works of the early phase of their editorial collaboration.

Condition Report

A complete copy, with margins trimmed but present. Central vertical editorial fold and additional folds, creases and waviness of the support, more evident in the central area and along the margins.
Overall good conservation condition, minor restoration interventions but the paper remains intact in its cartographic components and fully legible.