1749 Vaugondy Map of Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazil

Splendid hand colored map of Guyana depicting the mythical Lake Cassipa and the Amazon River.

This is a hand colored 1749 Didier Robert de Vaugondy map of Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, and Brazil. The map stretches from Venezuela to Brazil and from the Caribbean Sea to the Amazon. The Province of Tierra Firme (Terre Ferme) were the mainland coastal possessions of Spain's New World Empire surrounding the Caribbean Sea. The mythical Cassipa Lake is depicted near the center. Cassipa Lake can trace its origins back to the myth of El Dorado and Sir Walter Raleigh. It was said that when Lake Cassipa receded, large deposits of gold would be revealed. Lake Cassipa and another mythical lake, Lake Parima, appeared on many early maps of South America. Through miscommunications with the locals, explorers came to believe that rivers and tributaries were in fact large, fantastic lakes. Four rivers are depicted flowing from Lake Cassipa, all of which run into the Orinoco (Orinoque) River.

Another intriguing, but much less mythical, inclusion on this map is the Marañón, or Amazon, River. The river stretches across the entire lower portion of the map, dotted by towns and tributaries as it winds its way toward its mouth where it drains into the Atlantic Ocean. The map declares that part of Brazil to the 'Amazon country' (Pays des Amazones) and only labels the coastal section of that territory as Brazil.

Guiana is divided between the Dutch section and the French section, with the Dutch capital at Surinam and the French at Cayenne. Guiana is traversed by numerous rivers, but towns are only located along the coast.

This map was published by Gilles Robert de Vaugondy in his Atlas Universel, Portatif et Militaire in the 1749 edition.

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

Robert de Vaugondy, G., Atlas Portatif, Universel, et Militaire, (Paris: Vaugondy, Durand, Pissot) 1749.    

Condition

Very good. Blank on verso. Original press mark visible.

References

Pedley, M. S., Bel et Utile, p. 217, 489. OCLC 159770338.