Pour la Carte de Catalogne

Title

Pour la Carte de Catalogne

Eight partial maps on one sheet show Puicerda, Trinite, Rosas, Gerona, Palamos, Barcelona and Mont Iovy in Spain.

ca. 1692

Artist

Jaillot/ Sanson (1632-1712)

Alexis Hubert Jaillot (1632–1712) was a prominent French cartographer and publisher. In 1665, he married into the Berey family of map publishers. After the death of his brother-in-law Nicolas II Berey in 1667, Jaillot bought the Berey map collection from his sister-in-law, acquiring a valuable stock without having ever created a map himself. Jaillot entered the map business at a favorable time—after Louis XIV’s early victories in the Reunions Wars in 1668, France’s territory expanded rapidly, creating high demand for maps showing French triumphs, new borders, and expansion plans. His collection included plates originally made by Pierre Duval, who resisted Jaillot’s reissues. At the height of this conflict, Jaillot gained the support of Guillaume and Adrien Sanson, sons of Nicolas Sanson, as mapmakers and partners, enabling him to publish new maps under the prestigious Sanson name. His first atlas, Atlas Nouveau (1681), was a commercial success, leading to widespread piracy by other publishers.

Historical Description

The Pyrenean region has always been a preferred transit area for culture and trade between the Near East and the British Isles. In the course of the wars between the Frankish Empire and the Arabs, several counties were created at the end of the 8th and beginning of the 9th century in the northern part of Catalonia, which today belongs to Spain, and in northern Catalonia, which today belongs to France. At first, these counties were under the control of the West Frankish or French king, but in the course of the following centuries they became increasingly independent. As a result of the marriage contract between Raimund Berengar IV, Count of Barcelona, and Petronila/Peronella, heiress to the Crown of Aragon, who was only one year old, a state community known as the Crown of Aragon was created in 1137 from Aragon and the lands of the Counts of Barcelona, which were largely identical to Catalonia in the 12th century. The Franco-Spanish War of 1635-1659 saw separatist movements in Spain. In 1640, Portugal successfully regained its independence. Catalonia also tried to regain its former independence, but was not successful in it. In the Peace of the Pyrenees, Spain had to cede the Catalan territories north of the Pyrenees to France, while the rest of Catalonia remained with Spain. In the War of the Spanish Succession (1700-1713), which was about the succession to the throne after the death of Charles II, who remained childless, most Catalans supported the Habsburg pretender to the throne, Archduke Charles, against the Bourbon Philip of Anjou. Between 1812 and 1814, Catalonia was part of the French Empire and was divided first into four and later into two French départements. In the Second Republic, Catalonia was initially granted provisional autonomy in 1931 with the re-establishment of the Generalitat; this was codified in the Statute of Autonomy of 1932. Because of its historical, linguistic and cultural differences from the rest of Spain, Catalonia sees itself as a separate nation. The term nation is understood in the sense of a cultural nation and is not defined by ethnic affiliation.