Mappemonde

Title

Mappemonde

Description

Decorative double hemisphere world map, after de l'Isle and Buache.

dated 1780

Artist

Dezauche (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

Popular science refers to the period from about the 15th to the 18th centuries. The era is considered to be in the early modern period and is primarily concerned with the knowledge of seafarers and explorers. The idea of the age of discoveries is shaped by seafaring and discoveries overseas. In terms of content, however, it also includes astronomy, which is associated with the names of Tycho Brahe, Nikolaus Kopernikus, Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler, among others. Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei also belong to this group. Not only the seafarers with their discoveries, but also they brought about changes in the world view. Some motifs were religious, e.g. B. that Christianity should be spread in the New World (missionary). The great European powers also expected an expansion of their political sphere of influence. This is evident in the overseas colonies, including the Spaniards, Portuguese, English, Dutch and French. The Tordesillas Treaty of 1494 is an example of this. It regulated the distribution of the discovered countries between Portugal and Spain. Global exploration began with the Portuguese discoveries of the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores in 1419 and 1427, the African coast after 1434, and the sea route to India in 1498; and from the Crown of Castile (Spain) the transatlantic trips of Christopher Columbus to America between 1492 and 1502 and the first world tour in the years 1519–1522. These discoveries led to numerous naval expeditions across the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and land expeditions in America, Asia, Africa, and Australia that continued into the late 19th century, followed by exploration of the polar regions in the 20th century. European overseas exploration led to the rise of world trade and the European colonial empires, with contact between the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa) and the New World (America and Australia) creating Colombian exchange, a wide range of plant transfers, animals, and food , human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases and culture between the Eastern and Western Hemisphere. The age of discovery and later exploration of Europe made it possible to map the world, which led to a new worldview and distant civilizations, but also to the spread of diseases that decimated populations that were not previously in contact with Eurasia and Africa, and to enslavement , Exploitation, military conquest and economic dominance of Europe and its colonies over indigenous people. It also allowed the expansion of Christianity.