Descripción

Descripción estado: Marcas de edad

Medidas totales: 13.8×20.5cm. Medidas huella: 9.5×15.5cm. Exchange house London. Paris 1683

Attractive birdseye view of one of the main parts of London. Mallet’s multi-volume work is one of the most famous and comprehensive illustrated works of the 17th Century, which is prized for its excellent illustrations and strong engraving quality.

Alain Mannesson Mallet (1630-1706) was a French mapmaker and engineer who served in the armies of Louis XIV. After rising through the ranks, Mallet was appointed as Inspector of Fortifications, a job which also required mathematical skills and which made him a competent military engineer. Eventually, he joined the court of Louis XIV at Versailles, where he taught math and focused on writing.

Mallet is best known for his Description de L’Univers, first published in 1683, in five volumes. A wide-ranging geographical work, the Description included textual descriptions of the countries of the world, as well as maps of the celestial sky and the ancient and modern worlds. The Description continued to be published until the early eighteenth century. He also published a work in three volumes on warfare (1684) and a primer on geometry (1702).