Description
Richelieu was keen to expand the power of the French navy, realizing that it was essential to establishing France as a global power.
Richelieu came from a maritime family and wrote in a memorandum, “It has been till now a great shame that the king who is the eldest son of the Church is inferior in his maritime powers to the smallest prince in Christendom” (Knecht).
His efforts began in the year this map was created, with the establishment of a Conseil de Marine to present naval proposals to the king’s council.
At the time, there was no permanent fleet in the Atlantic and a handful of galleys in the Mediterranean; a decade later, there were three squadrons of round ships in the Atlantic, and one in the Mediterranean. Richelieu was spurred on in his efforts by the Protestant privateers blocking Catholic towns on the Atlantic coast during the Wars of Religion and the Huguenot Rebellions, and the subsequent loss of much of the Atlantic trade to the English and Dutch ( James).
In line with France’s new outward-looking foreign policy, the map shows the global reach and ambitions of the French empire. It concentrates in particular on New France in the Americas, which in 1624 included the shores of the St. Lawrence River, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia (Arcadia), shown on the map as ‘Canada’ and ‘Estotiland’. ‘Virginne’ (Virginia) and ‘Floride’ (Florida), also appear. Amongst the vignettes in the margin is an early image of an ‘habitation en Virginie et floride’ and an Indian village in Virginia, drawn after Theodor de Bry (who published some of de Caus’ works).
Richelieu had a particular interest in the French territory of New France, now known as Canada. In 1627, he authorized an association of merchants, the Compagnie de la Nouvelle-France, popularly known as the Compagnie des Cent-Associes, or The One Hundred Associates, to take all steps it might think expedient for the protection of the colony and the expansion of trade and commerce, including a complete monopoly on the fur trade. Both Richelieu and Champlain were members.
Richelieu was the nominal governor of New France, but Champlain was appointed acting governor. Apart from a brief interruption when the English blockaded the Saint Lawrence River and captured Quebec between 1629 and 1633, the Compagnie remained proprietor of New France until 1663.
In all, 17 settlements are shown on the map: Rome, ‘Mecha’ (Mecca), Mosco(w), Constantinople, Quebec, Quinsay (Hangchow), Beijing, Jerusalem, ‘La Babylone’, ‘Mexique’ (Mexico City), Leon, Lima, Cusco, ‘Arica Potosi’, ‘ville de la plate’, ‘Fernanborg’ (in Brazil), and ‘Cambalu’ (in Cathay). Regional names and tribal names appear in red and gold.
Jean Salomon de Caus (1576-1626) was an architect, engineer, mathematician and author. He is known not only for his works, but also for his extensive writings on how he achieved them, including ‘Hortus Palatinus’ (1620) on his Heidelberg garden designs, and ‘Les raisons des forces mouvantes’ (1615) on the principles of hydraulics behind the automata and fountains in his gardens.
De Caus’ influence was widespread in the courts of the Southern and Northern Netherlands, Germany, and England, where his younger brother Isaac de Caus (1590-1648) worked, long before he became ‘Ingenieur et Architecte du Roy’ for Louis XIII. James I brought him to the English court as drawing master to his children, Elizabeth and Henry Frederick.
De Caus arrived in France in 1620, at first in Rouen and then in Paris. He first worked for Louis XIII as a hydraulic engineer, responsible for sanitation and water supply.
In the records, there are a few maps attributed to Salomon de Caus. During the last years of his life, de Caus also worked as a cartographer. In approximately 1622, he created a plan of Paris, as discussed in “De Vitruve”; however, the map is now lost or its whereabouts are unknown. (Nature as Model, page 64)
Another manuscript map with the signature of de Caus is recorded. "Les Paiis Bas ou la Basse Alemaigne...memoire des villes principalles que le Roy Despagne tient au pays bas en ceste annee 1624 15eme mars..memoire des villes que Messrs Les Estats tiennent signed 'par S.de Caus Ingenieur et architecte du Roy
This illumunated manuscript map on a single vellum sheet, ink and wash, 640 x 810mm., the map depicting the states of Germany and the Low Countries, as well as the Eastern portion of England.
Numerous towns indicated by settlement symbols, regions delineated by wash outlines, rivers in blue, place-names in sepia, regional names in red, countries and seas in gold. The waters are decorated with wavy blue lines, three ships (flying the French flag) and a sea monster. The title is set in the North Sea as a tableau cartouche with scale bars below, surrounded by ruled sepia borders with multi-colored infills, and inset tables of the principal towns at the lower right corner.
Richelieu was keen to expand the power of the French navy, realizing that it was essential to establishing France as a global power. When Richelieu came to power, New France 5canada), where the French had a foothold since Jacques Cartier, had no more than 100 permanent European inhabitants.
Richelieu encouraged Louis XIII to colonize the Americas by founding the Compagnie de la Nouvelle France, in imitation of the Dutch West India Company (W.I.C.)
M. Desnoyers a la parole pour une communication relative à une mappemonde autographe de Salomon de Caus.
«Je me proposais, dit-il, d'avoir l'honneur de communique aujourd'hui à l'Académie la description d'une mappemonde manuscrite sur parchemin, signée par S. (Salomon) de Caus, ingénieur du Roy, mappemonde que je possède depuis plusieurs années.
Mais désirant présenter cette carte à l'Académie à l'appui de ta description détaillée que j'en donnerai, j'ai dû différer jusqu'après l'exposition du Congrès de géographie , où elle figure. « Je me bornerai à dire aujourd'hui que cette mappemonde est incontestablement de la main du céfèbre ingénieur qui l'a signée.
La comparaison de l'écriture du plus grand nombre des inscriptions de la carte avec les rares autographes jusqu'ici connus de Salomon de Caus ne peut laisser à cet égard aucun doute. Il en est de même de l'état des connaissances géographiques qu'elle dénote chez son auteur.
Si l'on compare cette carte aux mappemondes des géographes les plus connus de la fin du xvie et du commencement du xvne siècle, particulièrement d'Ortels et de Hondts, si justement illustres sous les noms savants d'Ortelius et de Hondius, on voit qu'elle est conforme à l'état des connaissances géographiques les plus répandues à cette époque, quoiqu'elle soit incomplète et inachevée.
Le titre de géographe du Roy (Louis XIII) , que prend Salomon de Gaus, fixe, avec une certitude presque complète, la date de la rédaction de la mappemonde, puisque l'auteur n'a reçu et porté ce titre que depuis son retour définitif en France, en 1620 ou 1621. On connaît la date de sa mort en 1626. Son dernier ouvrage imprimé : La pratique et démonstration des horloges solaires, etc.
(1 vol, in-f° publié à Paris en 16 24, et dans lequel il s'occupe de cosmographie plus que dans aucun autre de ses écrits), est dédié au cardinal de Richelieu; or, on lit dans l'épître dédicatoire que l'auteur met cr souvent le compas et la règle à la main , pour tâcher κ de s'acquitter du service qu'il lui doit, On peut donc présumer, avec une grande vraisemblance, queue Salomon de Caus fait allusion à ses études de géographie, et qu'il travaillait encore à cette mappemonde, qui est restée inédite, peu de temps avant sa mort, c'est-à-dire de 1624 à 1626.
«Il est permis d'ajouter aux nombreux titres qui ont fait à Salomon de Caus la réputation d'un ingénieur physician, hydrographe, architecte, musicien théoricien, etc., celui de géographe.
Il n'était, sans doute, pas besoin de ce nouveau renseignement pour achever de détruire le roman, auquel1 on a cru trop longtemps, de l'a prétendue Îofe de Salomon de Caras et de son in carcération par les ordres du grand ministre auquel il dédiait l'un de ses principaux ouvrages,
Reference: Jean-Vincent Blanchard, Éminence: Cardinal Richelieu and the Rise of France, (New York: Bloomsbury, 2011); Alan James, The Navy and government in Early Modern France 1572-1661 (Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2004); Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994); Robert J. Knecht, Richelieu, (Routledge, 2014); Richard Lodge, The Life of Cardinal Richelieu, (New York: A.L. Burt, 1903); Luke Morgan, Nature as Model: Salomon de Caus and Early Seventeenth-Century Landscape Design, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
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