1772 Vaugondy and Diderot Map of the Pacific Northwest and the Northwest Passage

A Boldly Presented Northwest Passage.

This is Robert de Vaugondy's 1772 map of the northern Pacific Ocean, after that of Joseph De l'Isle, combining two of the most elaborate fallacies to be presented on a map: the Sea of the West and the Northwest Passage attributed to the fictitious Admiral de Fonte. Both fictions fueled avid speculation throughout the latter part of the 18th century. When this map was produced for inclusion in Diderot's Encyclopédie, the question of the possible existence of a Northwest Passage was a great cartographic cause célèbre.

A Closer Look

The map focuses on part of Siberia and northeastern Asia, as well as the northwestern parts of the American continent, including the Hudson Bay, and the hoped-for Northwest Passage. It features massive, speculative islands in the north Pacific, a prominent Sea of the West, and an unambiguous Northwest Passage leading to the Pacific from Hudson Bay. The map's Asian matter traces the routes of actual explorers, including Tchirikow and Bering; De l'Isle had accumulated a wealth of state-of-the-art knowledge of Siberia and Kamchatka during his tenure at Russian Tzar Peter the Great's Royal Academy, and it is this detail that brought credibility to his maps of the north.

The map's North American information was derived from less scientific sources. The alleged source for the imaginary chain of rivers and lakes traversing northwestern Canada was a 17th-century Spanish Admiral named Bartholomew de Fonte, whose existence was revealed to a credulous readership in a 1706 English magazine entitled Memoirs of the Curious. The account - a work of fiction - credited de Fonte with having sailed the Pacific coast of North America in 1640 and discovering the astonishing array of lakes, rivers, and waterfalls displayed here. It strongly hinted at the existence of a water route between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific - something that navigators had sought as far back as the 16th century. The tale was eagerly digested by an audience already on the lookout for such wonders and was even embraced by such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.

The De Fonte cartography is here combined with a prominent Sea of the West - a massive, imaginary bay in the Pacific Northwest. The Sea had been the subject of conjecture by Joseph De l'Isle's more illustrious elder brother, Guillaume, who had been canny enough not to publish sketches of such a body of water without any evidence of its existence. The embrace of this Mer de l'Ouest by the younger De l'Isle and his colleague Philippe Buache was controversial from the start, which may have been the cartographers' intent. While they were not the first to show the spurious De Fonte geography and the Sea of the West, they were in the forefront in presenting them as part of a navigable Northwest Passage, a contention which would spur actual exploration to disprove it.

Publication History and Census

This is the seventh of ten maps prepared by Vaugondy for the Supplement to Diderot's Encyclopédie. The Supplément à l'Encyclopédie is well represented in institutional collections. The separate maps appear on the market from time to time.

Cartographers

Robert de Vaugondy (fl. c. 1716 - 1786) was a French publishing firm run by Gilles (1688 - 1766) and Didier (c. 1723 - 1786) Robert de Vaugondy. They were map publishers, engravers, and cartographers active in Paris during the mid-18th century. Gilles was the nephew of Pierre Moulard Sanson, and was thus the inheritor of Nicolas Sanson (1600 - 1667), whose stock supplied much of their initial material and whose legacy supplied much of their initial reputation. Graduating from Sanson's maps, Gilles, and more particularly Didier, began to produce their own substantial corpus. The Vaugondys were well-respected for the detail and accuracy of their maps, for which they capitalized on the resources of 18th-century Paris to compile the most accurate and fantasy-free maps possible. The Vaugondys compiled each map based on their own geographic knowledge, scholarly research, journals of contemporary explorers and missionaries, and direct astronomical observation. Moreover, unlike many cartographers of this period, they took pains to reference their sources. Nevertheless, even in 18th-century Paris, geographical knowledge was limited - especially regarding those unexplored portions of the world, including the poles, the Pacific Northwest of America, and the interiors of Africa, Australia, and South America. This gap in knowledge let to divergent geographical approaches, epitomized by the Buache-Vaugondy debates at the French Academie des Sciences - one of the key pivotal moments in the history of modern cartography. Buache, in his Exposé, argued for a Theoretical Geography, which postulated that a systematic and scientific approach could accurately fill in the map in advance of actual exploration. Vaugondy's scathing critique of the Exposé, presented as the Considerations, argued for empirical restraint in cartography, suggesting that unexplored areas should simply be left blank and that mapping itself should rely on documentable current discovery. While Bucahe, with more political acumen and connections, initially came out ahead in the debates, the subsequent decades saw voyages of discovery by Captains James Cook, Jean Francois de Galaup de La Perouse, and George Vancouver disprove most of his map. Nonetheless, by that time, Vaugondy, advanced in age, did not live long enough to see his approach become ascendant. Didier died more celebrated than solvent, and his maps were acquired by Jean-Baptiste Fortin, who in 1787 sold them to Charles-François Delamarche (1740 - 1817). Delamarche, more businessman than cartographer, prospered from the Vaugondy maps, but defrauded Vaugondy's widow, Marie Louise Rosalie Dangy, of her rightful inheritance and may even have killed her.   Further Details...

Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 - July 31, 1784) was a French Enlightenment era philosopher, publisher and writer. Diderot was born in the city of Langres, France and educated at the Lycée Louis le Grand where, in 1732, he earned a master of arts degree in philosophy. Diderot briefly considered careers in the clergy and in law, but in the end chose the more fiscally challenge course of a writer. Though well respected in philosophical circles Diderot was unable to obtain any of the government commissions that commonly supported his set and consequently spent much of his life in deep poverty. He is best known for his role in editing and producing the Encyclopédie . The Encyclopédie was one of the most revolutionary and impressive works of its time. Initially commissioned as a translation of Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, Diderot instead turned into a much larger and entirely new work of monumental depth and scope. Diderot's Encyclopédie was intended to lay bare before the common man the intellectual mysteries of science, art and philosophy. This revolutionary mission was strongly opposed by the powers of the time who considered a learned middle class it a threat to their authority. In the course of the Encyclopédie production Diderot was imprisoned twice and the work itself was officially banned. Nonetheless, publication continued in response to a demand exceeding 4000 subscribers. The Encyclopédie was finally published in 1772 in 27 volumes. Following the publication of the Encyclopédie Diderot grew in fame but not in wealth. When the time came to dower his only surviving daughter, Angelique, Diderot could find no recourse save to sell his treasured library. In a move of largess, Catherine the II Russia sent an emissary to purchased the entire library on the condition that Diderot retain it in his possession and act as her "librarian" until she required it. When Diderot died of gastro-intestinal problems 1784, his heirs promptly sent his vast library to Catherine II who had it deposited at the Russian National Library, where it resides to this day.   Further Details...

The De L'Isle family (fl. c. 1700 - c. 1760) (also written Delisle) were, in composite, a mapmaking tour de force who redefined early 18th century European cartography. Claude De L'Isle (1644 -1720), the family patriarch, was Paris based a historian and geographer under Nicholas Sanson. De L'Isle and his sons were proponents of the school of "positive geography" and were definitive figures, defining the heights of the Golden Age of French Cartography. Of his twelve sons, four, Guillaume (1675 - 1726), Simon Claude (1675 - 1726), Joseph Nicholas (1688 - 1768) and Louis (1720 - 1745), made a significant contributions to cartography. Without a doubt Guillaume was the most remarkable member of the family. It is said that Guillaume's skill as a cartographer was so prodigious that he drew his first map at just nine years of age. He was tutored by J. D. Cassini in astronomy, science, mathematics and cartography. By applying these diverse disciplines to the vast stores of information provided by 18th century navigators, Guillaume created the technique that came to be known as "scientific cartography", essentially an extension of Sanson's "positive geography". This revolutionary approach transformed the field of cartography and created a more accurate picture of the world. Among Guillaume's many firsts are the first naming of Texas, the first correct map of the Mississippi, the final rejection of the insular California fallacy, and the first identification of the correct longitudes of America. Stylistically De L'Isle also initiated important changes to the medium, eschewing the flamboyant Dutch style of the previous century in favor of a highly detailed yet still decorative approach that yielded map both beautiful and informative. Guillaume was elected to the French Academie Royale des Sciences at 27. Later, in 1718, he was also appointed "Premier Geographe du Roi", an office created especially for him. De L'Isle personally financed the publication of most of his maps, hoping to make heavy royalties on their sales. Unfortunately he met an untimely death in 1728, leaving considerable debt and an impoverished child and widow. De L'Isle's publishing firm was taken over by his assistant, Phillipe Buache who became, posthumously, his son in law. The other De L'Isle brothers, Joseph Nicholas and Louis De L'Isle, were employed in the Service of Peter the Great of Russia as astronomers and surveyors. They are responsible for cataloguing and compiling the data obtained from Russian expeditions in the Pacific and along the northwest coast of America, including the seminal explorations of Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov. The De L'Isles, like their rivals the Vaugondys , must be considered speculative geographers. Speculative geography was a genre of mapmaking that evolved in Europe, particularly Paris, in the middle to late 18th century. Cartographers in this genre would fill in unknown areas on their maps with speculations based upon their vast knowledge of cartography, personal geographical theories, and often dubious primary source material gathered by explorers and navigators. This approach, which attempted to use the known to validate the unknown, naturally engendered many rivalries. The era of speculatively cartography effectively ended with the late 18th century explorations of Captain Cook, Jean Francois de Galaup de La Perouse, and George Vancouver.   Further Details...

Source

Supplement to Diderot, D., Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers; or Robert de Vaugondy, G., Recueil de 10 Cartes Traitant Particulierement de L'Amerique du Nord, (Paris) 1779.    

Condition

Excellent.

References

OCLC 34961790. McGuirk, D. L., The Last Great Cartographic Myth: Mer de l'Ouest, # 147. Pedley, M. S., Bel et Utile: The Work of the Robert de Vaugondy Family of Mapmakers. 454. Wagner, H. R., The Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America to the Year 1800,, 637-7. Kershaw, K. A., Early Printed Maps of Canada, 1232. Phillips, P. L., Atlases 1195.7.