Mappe-monde Geo-Hydrographique ou Description Generale du Globe Terrestre et Aquatique en Deux-Plans-Hemipsheres ou son Exactement Remarquees en General Toutes les Parties de la Terre et de L'Eau, suivant les Relations les plus Nouvelles, par le S. Sanson Geographe Ordinaire du Roy.

1691 Sanson Map of the World on Hemisphere Projection

An extraordinary map of monumental proportions, this Sanson and Jaillot's c.1691 decorative map of the world on a double hemisphere projection. Covers the entire world according to its 17th century conception. Elaborate allegorical cartouches appear at top center and bottom center detailing cherubs riding dolphins - the symbols of the Dauphin of France. Our survey of this map will begin in North America where California is depicted as an island. The idea of an insular California first appeared as a work of fiction in Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo's c. 1510 romance Las Sergas de Esplandian, where he writes Know, that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very close to the side of the Terrestrial Paradise; and it is peopled by black women, without any man among them, for they live in the manner of Amazons. Baja California was subsequently discovered in 1533 by Fortun Ximenez, who had been sent to the area by Hernan Cortez. When Cortez himself traveled to Baja, he must have had Montalvo's novel in mind, for he immediately claimed the Island of California for the King. By the late 16th and early 17th century ample evidence had been amassed, through explora

Date

1691

Archive

Wikimedia Commons

Type

map

Original size

6,000 × 3,673 pixels

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