De l’Asie. / Figure XXIX. 67. / Palais d Jedo

Title

De l’Asie. / Figure XXIX. 67. / Palais d Jedo

Description

Illustration of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Japan.

ca. 1683

Artist

Mallet (1630-1706)

Alain Manesson Mallet (1630- 1706 ) was a French cartographer and engineer. He started his career as a soldier in the army of Louis XIV, became a Sergeant-Major in the artillery and an Inspector of Fortifications. He also served under the King of Portugal, before returning to France, and his appointment to the court of Louis XIV. His military engineering and mathematical background led to his position teaching mathematics at court. His major publications were Description de L'Univers (1683) in 5 volumes, and Les Travaux de Mars ou l'Art de la Guerre (1684) in 3 volumes. His Description de L'Universe contains a wide variety of information, including star maps, maps of the ancient and modern world, and a synopsis of the customs, religion and government of the many nations included in his text. It has been suggested that his background as a teacher led to his being concerned with entertaining his readers. This concern manifested itself in the charming harbor scenes and rural landscapes that he included beneath his description of astronomical concepts and diagrams. Mallet himself drew most of the figures that were engraved for this book.

Historical Description

According to archaeological finds, the urban area was already populated in the Stone Age. Tokyo was originally a small fishing port under its own name Edo. Around 1457 the last Daimyō Ōta Dōkan a castle was built near the village. The settlement only gained importance in 1590 when it became the property of the Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616). The city's history began in 1446, when Dta Dōkan began building Edo Castle in a swamp on the north bank of what is now Tokyo Bay, according to some fishing villages. In 1590 this castle went to Tokugawa Ieyasu, who founded his new Shogunate and thus the Edo period after his victory in the Battle of Sekigahara. In addition to Kyoto, Edo became the political and central center of the country. With the Meiji restoration in 1868, the Shogunate was lost and the seat of the Tennō moved to Edo, the castle became the Imperial Palace and Edo got its new name Tokyo, the Eastern Capital. From then on, one of the city's population, who was one of the world's representatives with two million units around 1910.