Nicolas Sanson

AFRIQVE | Par N. Sanson d'Abbevile, Geog. du Roy | A Paris | Chez l'Auteur | Et chez Pierre Mariette, rue S. Iacques a l'Esperance | 1650 | Auec privilege du Roy pour vingt ans.
[imprint of engraver at bottom right of map]:   APeyrounin sculp.

Original copperplate printed map : 
39 x 56 cm.
Map #AFS-142             
$800

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This is a landmark map of Africa. It is the first French map to depict significantly new information on Africa as opposed to earlier French maps, which generally copied Dutch maps. Further, the publication of this map, along with Sanson's maps of the other continents and regions, signaled the beginning of a growing French competition with the Dutch mapmakers of the seventeenth century.

Nicolas Sanson (1600-1667) was born in Abbeville and moved to Paris in 1627, where he was made 'Geographe Ordinaire du Roi' in 1630. He later would become tutor to the future king, Louis XIV

Austere in comparison to the Dutch folio maps of this period, Sanson's 1650 map of Africa is precise and scientific in its approach to presenting information. Sanson tends to be sparse in his information, omitting placenames, one may assume, because they were only based on hearsay. More information, however, is provided on those areas that were coming under increasing French control in Madagascar and in West Africa.

Betz, Map #78.  Tooley 1969: 98-100.  Not in Norwich.

Fine.