Carte du Mexique et de la Floride des Terres Angloises et des Isles Antilles du Cours de la Riviere de Mississipi..

Carte du Mexique et de la Floride des Terres Angloises et des Isles Antilles du Cours et des Environs de la Riviere de Mississipi. Dressée sur un grand nombre de memoires principalemt. sur ceux de ... d'Iberville et le Sueur. Paris: Chez l'Auteur le Sr. Delisle sur le Quai de l'Horloge, 1703 [1708].

A good copy of the second state (of five) of this 'towering landmark along the path of Western cartographic development' (Wheat): the first printed map 'to portray accurately the course and mouth of the Mississippi River.' (Martin).

According to William Cumming, De L'Isle's address in the first state of this map reads 'Rue des Canettes pres de St. Sulpice', the second issue address (as here) reads 'sur le Quai de l'Horloge'. '

“At the time De L'Isle prepared his new map of Mexico and Florida, published in 1703, much new information on the area had become available since Coronelli's effort fifteen years before. Firsthand reports from the survivors of Lasalle's expedition, as well as from the French explorers and colonizers of the Gulf region like Bienville and d'Iberville, were carefully studied ... [The present map] was the first printed map to portray accurately the course and mouth of the Mississippi River. He correctly depicted the Great Lakes region, as well as the many English settlements along the East Coast. He also carefully set down the explorations of d'Iberville and his men on the gulf Coast and the lower reaches of the Mississippi and Red rivers, and the Indian villages in East Texas where the Spanish constructed their missions and presidios. The present-day region of Texas and Oklahoma was portrayed as part of "Floride," a French posession, the name of which in later maps was changed to Louisiana' (James C. Martin Maps of Texas and the Southwest, 1513-1900 p.93). De L'Isle's maps were regarded as quasi-official documents that reflected the opinions and policies of the French government. For this reason, his expansion of the French territorial claims at the expense of Britain and Spain caused great alarm in London and Madrid. He pushed Spanish America west to the Pecos River, therefore laying claim to Texas and the Great Plains for France, and the English colonies were restricted to a narrow strip on the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains. Guillaume de l'Isle (1675-1726), or De L'Isle, was the son of a cartographer and a pupil of Jean Dominique Cassini, who, among other important contributions, aligned the study of astronomy to the study of geography. Under Cassini's direction, observations were made from locations all over the world that enabled longitudinal calculations to be made with much greater accuracy. DeL'Isle carried on this exacting work with remarkable dedication and integrity, constantly revising and improving his maps. While precision was his primary goal, his maps are invariably elegant and attractive. 'He has often been cited as the first truly scientific cartographer, and his maps were widely copied by the commercial ateliers of Paris, Amsterdam, and the rest of Europe. He was elected to the French Academy of Science in 1702 and in 1718 was named "Premier Geographe du Roi," a title created especially for him' (James C. Martin Maps of Texas and the Southwest, 1513-1900 p. 93).

Guillaume de L'Isle (1675-1726) was the Geographer Royal to both Kings Louis XIV and Louis XV. Of a brilliant and precocious mind, while still only in his 20s, De L'Isle established himself as the leading cartographer in France, then the epicenter of mapmaking in Europe. With his unrivaled access to both official French government and Jesuit sources, De L'Isle was able to devise maps of North America which were dramatically more advanced than those of his contemporaries, of which the present map is a prime example.

Copper-engraved map, hand-coloured in outline, fine condition. 

Bibliografia
Bryan & Hanak Texas in Maps 10; Cumming Southeast in Early Maps, 137; Alfred E. Lemmom and others (editors) Charting Loiusiana p.39; James C. Martin Maps of Texas and the Southwest 1513-1900 p.93; Schwartz & Ehrenberg, The Mapping of America, p.137; Wagner The Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America 474; Wheat Mapping the Transmississippi West 84.