Le cours du Rhin depuis Worms jus´qua Bonn

Title

Le cours du Rhin depuis Worms jus´qua Bonn

Description

Map shows the Rhin from Worms to Bonn

ca. 1788

Artist

Dezauche/de l´Isle, (1780-1838)

Jean-Claude Dezauche (1780-1838) was the successor to Guillaume De L'Isle and Philipe Buache. Guillaume De L´Isle (1675- 1726) Paris, was a French cartographer known for his popular and accurate maps of Europe and the newly explored Americas and Africa. De L´Isle was admitted into the French Académie Royale des Sciences, an institution financed by the French state. After that date, he signed his maps with the title of “Géographe de l’Académie”. Five years later, he moved to the Quai de l’Horloge in Paris, a true publishing hub where his business prospered. De L´Isle’s ascension through the ranks culminated in 1718 when he received the title of Premier Géographe du Roi. His new office consisted in teaching geography to the Dauphin, King Louis XIV’s son, a task for which he received a salary. De L´Isle’s reputation as a man of science probably helped .This supports the claim of the historian Mary Sponberg Pedley, who says “once authority was established, a geographer’s name might retain enough value to support two or three generations of mapmakers”. In De L´Isle’s case, it could be said that his accomplishments surpassed his father’s. Up to that point, he had drawn maps not only of European countries, such as Italy, Spain, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, and regions such as the Duchy of Burgundy, but he had also contributed to the empire’s claims to recently explored continents of Africa and the Americas. Like many cartographers of these days, De L´Isle did not travel with the explorers and elaborated the maps mostly in his office. The quality of his maps depended on a solid network that would provide him first-hand information. Given the family’s reputation and his own, De L´Isle had access to fairly recent accounts of travellers who were coming back from the New World, which gave him an advantage over his competitors. Being a member of the Académie, he was also aware of recent discoveries, especially in astronomy and measurement. When he could not confirm the accuracy of his source, he would indicate it clearly on his maps. For instance, his Carte de la Louisiane shows a river that the baron of Lahontan claimed he discovered, but no one else could validate it, so De L`lsle warned the viewer that its actual existence was in doubt. De L´Isle 's search for exactitude and intellectual honesty entangled him in a legal dispute in 1700 with Jean-Baptiste Nolin, a fellow cartographer. Noticing Nolin had used details that were considered original from his Map of the World, De L´isle dragged Nolin in court to prove his plagiarism. In the end, Delisle managed to convince the jury of scientists that Nolin only knew the old methods of cartography and therefore that he had stolen the information from his manuscript. Nolin's maps were confiscated and he was forced to pay the court costs.The scientificity of the work produced by the De L´Isle family contrasted with the workshop of Sanson. While Sanson knowingly published outdated facts and mistakes, De L´Isle strived to present up-to-date knowledge.

Historical Description

The headwaters of the Rhine lie predominantly in the Swiss canton of Graubünden; its estuary arms reach the North Sea in the Netherlands, where it is the most water-rich tributary. The Rhine bears its name without distinguishing additions only from the confluence of the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein at Tamins-Reichenau. Traditionally, Lake Toma near the Oberalp Pass near Sedrun in the Gotthard region is considered the source of the Vorderrhein and the Rhine as a whole. The Hinterrhein rises in the high valley Rheinwald below the Rheinwaldhorn. At Tamins-Reichenau the Vorderrhein and Hinterrhein join to form the Alpenrhein.Hochrhein: The Hochrhein begins at Stein am Rhein at the western end of the Untersee. In contrast to the Alpine Rhine and the Upper Rhine, it flows mainly to the west, dropping from 395 m to 252 m. The Rhine is the first major river in the world. In the center of Basel, the first large city on the course of the stream, lies the "Rhine bend"; here the High Rhine ends. Upper Rhine: At Mainz, the Rhine leaves the Upper Rhine Graben and flows through the Mainz Basin. The section of the Upper Rhine from Mainz down through the Rheingau and Rheinhessen is also known as the Inselrhein. The Upper Rhine Valley was already an important cultural landscape in Europe in ancient times and the Middle Ages. Today, the Upper Rhine is the location of numerous important industrial and service companies with the centers in Basel, Strasbourg and Mannheim-Ludwigshafen. Middle Rhine: The Mainz Basin ends at Bingen. The largest tributaries of the Middle Rhine are the Lahn and Moselle, which flow in from the right and left at Koblenz. Almost the entire length of the Middle Rhine runs through the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The valley area between Rüdesheim and Koblenz is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Upper Middle Rhine Valley. At Sankt Goarshausen, the Rhine encloses the famous Loreley Rock with a sharp river bend, where it reaches a depth of 25 meters. With its high-ranking architectural monuments, vine-covered slopes, towns crowded together on narrow banks and hilltop castles strung on rocky outcrops, the Middle Rhine Valley is considered the epitome of Rhine Romanticism. Lower Rhine: Near Bonn, north of the Siebengebirge, the Rhine changes from the low mountain region to the North German lowlands and becomes the Lower Rhine at the mouth of the Sieg. The Lower Rhine lies entirely in North Rhine-Westphalia. Its banks are mostly heavily populated and industrialized, especially in the agglomerations of Cologne, Düsseldorf and the Ruhr area. Delta Rhine: At the Dutch-German state border, the Rhine-Meuse delta, the most important natural unit of the Netherlands, begins with the Rhine division, and thus the Delta Rhine.