FRANCONIA GERMANY 1752 ROBERT DE VAUGONDY UNUSUAL ANTIQUE COPPER ENGRAVED MAP

Description: Striking and highly detailed interesting 1752 Gilles Robert de Vaugondy's copper engraved map of Franconia, in northern Bavaria, Germany.
 
Composition and Medium:
 
The map is engraved, a common practice in the 18th century for producing detailed cartographic works. Relief is shown by sketches, which was typical of the time to represent topographical variations. The map includes intricate line work and uses color to delineate boundaries, with regions outlined in different colors such as red, green, and yellow.
 
Style and Subject Matter:
 
The style of the map is characteristic of 18th-century European cartography, which combined scientific accuracy with artistic embellishment. It features a decorative cartouche in the top left corner, which is a hallmark of the period's aesthetic. The cartouche provides the title and other details about the map in an ornate, baroque frame.
 
The subject matter is the Franconian Circle, a region in what is now Germany. The map details the political divisions of the time, including duchies, principalities, and other territories within the Holy Roman Empire. The map includes numerous place names, rivers, and other geographical features, reflecting the complexity of the region’s political landscape during that era.
 
Cultural and Historical Context:
 
The map was created during a time of significant political and territorial changes in Europe. The Franconian Circle was one of the imperial circles of the Holy Roman Empire, which existed until its dissolution in the early 19th century. This map would have been an important tool for understanding the political geography of the region during a period when territorial boundaries were frequently contested and redrawn.
 
The map not only served practical purposes for navigation and territorial administration but also reflected the Enlightenment's emphasis on knowledge and exploration. Cartographers like Santini and the Robert de Vaugondys played a crucial role in disseminating geographical knowledge across Europe.
 
Notable Features:
 
- Cartouche: The map features an elaborate cartouche that provides the title and the creators’ names, indicating the collaborative nature of its production.
 
- Boundary Colors: The use of different colors to outline regions highlights the political divisions and aids in visual differentiation, a common technique in maps of this period.
 
- Scale and Detail: The scale of 1:480,000 allows for a high level of detail, making it useful for both scholarly and practical purposes.
 
In summary, this map of the Franconian Circle is a finely crafted piece of 18th-century cartography, reflecting the historical, cultural, and political complexities of its time. It serves as both a practical geographic tool and a work of art, embodying the Enlightenment spirit of exploration and knowledge.
 
Issued in the 1757 issue of the Atlas Universal. The Atlas Universal was one of the first atlases based upon actual surveys. Therefore, this map is highly accurate (for the period) and has most contemporary town names correct, though historic names are, in many cases, incorrect or omitted.

Source: Robert de Vaugondy, G., Atlas Universel, (Paris: Antoine Boudet) 1757.      

The Atlas Universel was the crowning glory of the Robert de Vaugondy firm's atlas production. The atlas was revolutionary on many levels and exemplified the Vaugondy credo commode, complet, univorme, et suive (convenient, complete, uniform, and easy to use). The atlas thus consisted of a wide corpus of maps, both modern and historical, was of moderate height and width, and featured maps of uniform style and structure. They partnered with Antoine Boudet, a shrewd businessman and publisher with whom they had worked previously, to produce the 1752 first edition. To minimize his fiscal risk, Boudet sold the atlas first by subscription using a large prospectus, receiving in the process over 1100 pre-orders. The first edition appeared in 1752 and contained beautifully produced maps with elaborate freshly designed allegorical cartouche work, generally by Pierre-Edme Babel, Pierre Philippe Choffard, and Charles Nicholas Cochin. Most of the maps were engraved by the Delahaye firm, the payment for whose services ultimately ed to legal disputes. Despite proving a popular work of astounding quality, the Atlas Universal received harsh criticism from fellow cartographers, particularly Philippe Buache. Ever at odds with the Vaugondys, Buache's critical perspective may have been influenced more by political maneuvering than academic affront. The atlas was issued in multiple editions between 1752 and 1788. Later editions, issued after 1786, were taken over by Charles Delamarche, who inherited the Robert de Vaugondy firm and assumed Boudet's publication rights.

Date: 1752 ( dated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 63,8 x 53,2

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Paper with chains and wiremarks. Map old original colored. Cartouches contemporary handcolored. Wide margins. Small foxing and browning. Map folded. Conditions are as you can see in the images.   

Mapmakers: Gilles (1688 - 1766) and Didier (c. 1723 - 1786) Robert de Vaugondy were map publishers, engravers, and cartographers active in Paris during the mid-18th century. The father and son team were the inheritors to the important Sanson cartographic firm whose stock supplied much of their initial material. Graduating from Sanson's map's Gilles, and more particularly Didier, began to produce their own substantial corpus of work. Vaugondys were well respected for the detail and accuracy of their maps in which they made excellent use of the considerable resources available in 18th century Paris to produce the most accurate and fantasy-free maps possible. The Vaugondys compiled each map based upon their own superior geographic knowledge, scholarly research, the journals of contemporary explorers and missionaries, and direct astronomical observation - moreover, unlike many cartographers of this period, they commonly took pains to reference their source material. Nevertheless, even in 18th century Paris geographical knowledge was severely limited - especially regarding those unexplored portions of the world, including the poles, the Pacific northwest of America, and the interior of Africa and South America. In these areas the Vaugondys, like their rivals De L'Isle and Buache, 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. Vaugondy's feuds with other cartographers, most specifically Phillipe Buache, resulted in numerous conflicting papers being presented before the Academie des Sciences, of which both were members. 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. After Didier died, his maps were acquired by Jean-Baptiste Fortin who in 1787 sold them to Charles-François Delamarche (1740 - 1817). While Delamarche prospered from the Vaugondy maps, he also defrauded Vaugondy's window Marie Louise Rosalie Dangy of her inheritance and may even have killed her.