Le Neptune François (1693)

A commissioned group of mathematicians and astronomers from the Académie Royale des Sciences worked together to map the coasts of the European continent from Norway to Gibraltar. Their efforts resulted in this magnificently engraved nautical atlas of twenty-nine leaves published in Amsterdam. The person responsible for the production of the maps, Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (1632-1712), started his career as a sculptor but soon followed his father-in-law into the mapmaking profession and later assumed the position of royal geographer.

Courtesy of the Wisconsin State Historical Society