1778 Santini Map of Persia, Arabia and Turkey

Beautiful map of Arabia based on earlier map by Vaugondy.

This is Paolo Santini’s spectacular 1778 map of the Persia, Arabia and Turkey or the Ottoman Empire. Covers the Empire at its height, with territory spanning from the Black Sea to the southernmost extension of Arabia and west, inclusive of Persia, as far as the Mongol Empire of India. Includes the modern day nations of Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, and Greece.

Based on an earlier map by Vaugondy, the map employs all of the latest geographical information of the time incorporating both French and transliterations Arabic place names. This map offers splendid detail throughout inclusive of undersea shoals and reefs in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, mountain ranges, lakes, rivers, and historical sites. A highly decorative title cartouche showing an Ottoman prince appears in the lower left quadrant. Five distance scales are in the lower right.

This map was redrawn by Paolo Santini from an earlier map by Robert de Vaugondy and was published in the 1784 issue of his Atlas Universel Dressee sur les Meilleures Cartes Modernes.

Cartographer

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...

Source

Santini, P., Atlas Universel Dressee sur les Meilleures Cartes Modernes, Venice (1784).    

Condition

Very good. Minor wear and verso repair along original centerfold. Original platemark visible. Minor foxing.

References

Rumsey 12039.111.