Nicholas Sanson d’Abbeville (1600-1667). Le Nouveau Mexique et La Floride: Tirees de diverses Cartes, et Relations (Paris: Chez Pierre Mariette, 1656). Rare first state with the imprint Chez Pierre Mariette, Rue S. Iacque . . . 1656. Copperplate engraving with fine original outline color. 12 1/4 x 21 ½ in. at neat line. Sheet size: 17 x 23 in. with full margins. Minor toning. Translated from the French: Florida is partly flat and sprinkled with quantities of rivers. Near the sea, it is almost entirely fabulous: The men there are very well made, as are the women. They have almost no religion. Overall, an excellent example with fine original outline color. $7,500.
$7,500.00
First State of Sanson’s Landmark Map of the American Southwest
Sanson’s 1650 map of North America and 1656 map of New Mexico seem to the present writer by far the most interesting and important maps—so far as what is now western United States is concerned—that had appeared since Enrico Martínez drew his little ‘sketch’ of Oñate’s route to Quivira in 1602—and this despite their manifest deficiencies and their retention of much of the older mythical geography. — Carl I. Wheat
Nicholas Sanson’s Map of New Mexico and Florida is highly significant in the history of cartography as the first large-scale map in a printed atlas to depict the Spanish territories from Florida to California. Martin and Martin note that “it served as a prototype for the delineation of California as an island, and contributed a number of new place names in the New Mexico region. . . . It has served as a summary of the best information available for the greater Texas region during the middle of the seventeenth century,” which, in essence, was very little. Sanson’s cartography of California would influence mapmakers for the next 50 years, its new shape distinguished by two bays along California’s northern coast. New placenames of unknown origin appear in the northern region of California as Talaago and R. de Estiete, in addition to an enigmatic peninsula protruding out of the mainland’s coast denoted as Agubela de Cato. Sanson also introduced new information on Indian tribes along the Rio Grande, here mistakenly shown as flowing southwest, and with Santa Fe erroneously located west of the Rio del Norte. Other intriguing denotations include Taofii, or the Pueblo of Taos, located just south of a large mythical lake in New Mexico’s northern region. The term “Floride Francois” is used for the first time to designate French possessions in Georgia and South Carolina.
The first edition of Sanson’s Map of New Mexico and Florida, which is offered here, bears the date 1656 and the imprint “Chez Pierre Mariette, Rue S. Iaque…1656.” The first edition of the map appeared both separately and in Sanson’s Cartes generales de toutes le parties du monde (Paris, 1658). An outstanding example of this cornerstone document, the present map is a strikingly noteworthy presentation of the American Southwest. Embellished with both factual and mythical information, this artifact would be a highly recommended addition to any collection focusing on this region and is inevitably bound to spark an engaging conversation.
Refs.: Burden, Mapping of North America, no. 319, illus.; Cumming, The Southwest in Early Maps, no. 49; Leighly, California as an Island, no. 27; McLaughlin and Mayo, California as an Island, no. 17, illus.; Martin and Martin, plate 10, illus.; Tooley, California as an Island (Map Collectors’ Circle No. 8), no. 14, plate VI; Wagner, Cartography of the Northwest Coast, p. 128, no. 374; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West, vol. I, pp. 39–40, no. 50.
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