Sanson & Mariette Mappe-Monde or World Map

SANSON, Nicolas (1600-1667) & MARIETTE, Pierre (1569-1657).
Mappe-Monde, ou Carte Generale Du Globe Terrestre Representee en deux Plan-Hemispheres Reveue et changee endroits Suivant les Relations les plus recentes.
Engraved map with original hand color in outline.
Paris: 1678.
22 1/2" x 16 1/2" sheet.

Nice example of the Sanson-Marriette double hemisphere map of the World, published by Nicolas Sanson, one of the most important mapmakers of the second half of the 17th Century, frequently regarded as the father of modern scientific mapmakers.

The map shows California as an island, the mythical Terre de Iesso, remnant of the land bridge that nearly con- nected North America and Asia and many 16th and early 17th Century maps, and information from Tasman and other Dutch Voyages showing the known extent of Australia (Nouvelle Hollande) and and New Zealand. Sanson's map leave the prospects of a Northwest Passage open, but offers no geographical detail north of the Island of California. Hudson's Bay is Mer Christiane and notes a region named N(ew) Danemarck.

A portion of the unknown southern continent remains, a concept which would soon disappear entirely from maps until the modern continent of Antarctica was discovered in two centuries later.

Sanson was the first modern mapmaker to eschew decorative embellishment in favor of the clean and accurate style of map presentation which became the norm in the 18th Century, although he did retain cartographic details which were unsupported by modern observations, just as the myth of California as and Island and the Unknown Southern Continent.

This is the third of 3 states of the map, which was first issued in 1660 and revised in 1669 and 1678, the latter two appearing in atlases published by Sanson's sons, Guillaume Sanson and Adrian Sanson, after Nicolas's death in 1667.