AmŽrique septentrionale par N. Sanson d'Abbeville Geog. du Roy

by SANSON, N[icolas]

Price: $15,000.00
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Book desription: Paris: A Paris chez l'auteur et chez Pierre Mariette rue S. Iacques a l[']Esper‡ce, 1650. First edition, second state, with a new coastline to the northwest of California; place-names to north (Anian, Quivira, and Nouvelle Albion) erased; Conibas moved to west; Azores depicted; Lake Ontario still unshaded along its shores; and longitude and latitude numerals every five degrees rather than ten. Copper engraved map (15 5/16 x 21 3/4 inches; 39 x 55 mm). Outlined in yellow, orange, green, and brown by a contemporary hand. A decorative cartouche of fruit on banderole at upper right.Professionally glazed and matted in a 23 3/4 x 30 inch (603 x 762 mm) period-style frame. An excellent, fresh example, with vibrant period outline coloring. This map, the first to depict North America using a sinusoidal projection, showed continental size to best advantage and typified Sanson's concern with scientific exactness. Sanson, who is considered the father of French cartography, had such an impeccable reputation that this map contributed to the longevity of the myth of California as an island. Sanson's credibility was built on his insistence on presenting only cartographical data that could be verified by explorers (here his sources were De Soto and Coronado). This map is a foundation stone for the cartography of the Southwest and the borderlands, presenting the first real advance in the region in decades. It also presents significant ethnographical information; "Apaches" and "Navajo" appear here for the first time on a printed map. Also named and located are "Apaches Vaqueros" (Apache cowboys).ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ "During the first half of the seventeenth century, the mapping of America was the province of the Dutch publishers who kept the market supplied with atlases in French, German, and Latin translations. But from 1650, when Nicolas Sanson issued this map of North America, France began to share in the enterprise. 'America septentrionale' shows an island of the Briggs configuration [Henry Briggs was an English mathematician who had a map published in another work in 1625 that depicted California as an island, and which was apparently after a map he had seen from Holland] but with additions that make it a new type. Mixed with the Briggs names on the coast are several from a map of 1630 by Jean de Laet, who did not accept the island theory. The piece of coastline to the northwest of the island is characteristic of maps copied from this one. Some new information is given inland. S(anta) Fe replaces Real Nueva Mexico, although it is mislocated on the west side of the Rio del Norte which is still flowing southwesterly instead of southeasterly. The names of a number of Indian tribes appear here for the first time: Navajo, Apaches de Xila, Apaches de Perylla, Apaches Vaqueros; and there are new place names, such as Taosij (the Pueblo of Taos). This map was reissued many times during Sanson's life-time and later, sometimes with additional material, by Hubert Jaillot." (Leighy, California as an Island, Plate VII). "The monotony of ... representations of imaginary geography was broken by Sanson, geographer to the French King, who in 1650 sired a curious map of North America combining with the older geography new factual information" (Wheat). "The first state ... is extremely rare [two copies located]; the second is also uncommon ... Landmark map of North America ... Perhaps most important for being the first printed map to delineate the five Great Lakes in a recognizable form ... The first to name Lakes Superior and Ontario ... The majority of the cartography of New France was new and would remain as the most accurate until superseded by Coronelli in 1688" (Burden)."Shows an island of the Briggs configuration but with additions that make it a new type" (Leighly). ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ Burden, The Mapping of North America 294. Leighly, California as an Island, p. 33 & plate 7. McLaughlin, The Mapping of California as an Island 12. Streeter Sale 39 (third state). Tooley, California as an Island 7. Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West 47 & I, p. 39.

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