1744 Bellin Map of the Bay of Pensacola, Florida

Pensacola Bay and its Anchorages.

This is an elegant 1744 chart of Pensacola Harbor in Florida by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin. It is among the earliest available charts of the bay and harbor and identifies the locations of Fort St. Charles and Fort St. Rose. Bellin also notes important coastal features, including reefs, soundings, and anchorages.

Bellin originally prepared this map to illustrate Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix's Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France. It was engraved by Guillaume Dheulland. Charlevoix's history and this map, in particular, thus proved exceptionally influential as one of the most comprehensive works on North America predating the French and Indian War. Copies of the Histoire et description generale were found in the libraries of many 18th-century luminaries, including Voltaire, Franklin, and Jefferson. Jefferson especially admired Charlevoix's work, calling it 'a particularly useful species of reading' and no doubt influenced his decision to pursue the historic 1802 Louisiana Purchase, possibly the most significant event in the post-colonial history of North America.

Publication History and Census

Charlevoix's Histoire et Description Generale, is well represented in institutional collections. OCLC lists perhaps fourteen examples of this separate map.

Cartographer

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703 - March 21, 1772) was one of the most important cartographers of the 18th century. With a career spanning some 50 years, Bellin is best understood as geographe de cabinet and transitional mapmaker spanning the gap between 18th and early-19th century cartographic styles. His long career as Hydrographer and Ingénieur Hydrographe at the French Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine resulted in hundreds of high quality nautical charts of practically everywhere in the world. A true child of the Enlightenment Era, Bellin's work focuses on function and accuracy tending in the process to be less decorative than the earlier 17th and 18th century cartographic work. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Bellin was always careful to cite his references and his scholarly corpus consists of over 1400 articles on geography prepared for Diderot's Encyclopedie. Bellin, despite his extraordinary success, may not have enjoyed his work, which is described as "long, unpleasant, and hard." In addition to numerous maps and charts published during his lifetime, many of Bellin's maps were updated (or not) and published posthumously. He was succeeded as Ingénieur Hydrographe by his student, also a prolific and influential cartographer, Rigobert Bonne.   Further Details...

Source

Charlevoix, Pierre François Xavier de, Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d'un voyage fait par ordre du roi dans l'Amerique septentrionnale, (Paris: Chez Rollin) 1744.    

Condition

Excellent, with generous margins.

References

OCLC 43723446.