Geographicus Rare & Antique Map Blog

This is the c. 1900 Taride edition of Louis Bretez and Michel-Etienne Turgot’s monumental 1739 map of Paris. Turgot’s map of Paris is possibly the most ambitious urban mapping ever undertaken. Shows the whole of 18th century Paris and offers a wonderful perspective on the city prior to Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann’s 19th-century redesign. Turgot, who held the mayor-like office of Prévôt des Marchands de Paris , commissioned Louis Bretez and Claude Lucas to produce this map in 1734. Oriented to the east on an axonometrical projection, this map is best understood as an aerial view where in every building, window, tree, shadow and park is shown. It took the team nearly five years of exhaustive sketching and surveying to assemble this masterpiece. In order to produce the thousands of sketches and surveys required to complete this map, Bretez was issued a permit to enter every building in Paris. The completed map which consists of twenty individual sheets, can be assembled into a massive and striking display roughly 8 feet by 10 feet. Twenty-one loose sheets embraced in a marbled folio, this is Alphonse Taride’s c. 1900 issue of Bretez’s Plan de Paris.

For more information: http://www.geographicus.com/P/AntiqueMap/Paris-turgot-1900