Brussels International
Map Collectors' Circle
Catalogue par Jean Boutier; avec la collaboration de Marine Sibille et de Jean-Yves Sarazin. - Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2002. - 432 p. : ill. ; 30 cm. - Bibliogr.: p. 404-429. - ISBN 2-7177-2230-0
Summary : Describes and illustrates most of the 369 main (chiefly printed) items (including facsim.), giving locations (in Europe and North America) of copies from imaginary view of M. Wohlgemuth & H. Pleydenwurff for the Liber cronicarum of H. Schedel (Nürnberg : A. Koberger, 1493) to Plan de la ville de Paris … of E. Verniquet ([Paris], An VII [i.e. 1799]), plus Supplément of two 18th-century items. Includes lost and unidentified items. Includes ind. of titles of maps, of authors of works in which maps appear, and of subjects.
Since 1908 — with the publication of the 583-page Catalogue des Plans de Paris et des cartes de l'Île de France, … conservés à la section des cartes et plans [de la Bibliothèque nationale] — compiled by Léon Vallée, librarian at the then BN, there has been no new edition. Vallée recorded 3592 main items in a mixed author and title sequence to 1907 and included a limited description of each; no illustrations were included. An analytic index (Table des matières) ran from p.[438] to 576, enabling one to locate items depicting particular buildings, streets, establishments, and features — with a section Paris (Ordre chronol[ogique]. des plans) from 1552 onwards: it was, in all, a pioneering and publicly-available inventory.
In 2002, after 20 years' research we now have — in contrast to Vallée — a carto-bibliography that is more restricted geographically and chronologically but expanded in depth of description of items and in recording of exemplars; views, panoramas, and some manuscripts are included. It is worth mentioning, however, that Boutier's item no 206 records states up to 1844 (Roussel's Paris, ses fauxbourgs et ses environs of 1730 re-issued in Paris by Auguste Logerot).
A most valuable introductory essay Cartographier une capitale extends over p. 9-64: valuable and innovatory (cf Vallée) as much for its typological breakdown of the 370 or so plans as for its rich provision of bibliographic references (up to 2002). Comparisons and contrasts are constantly drawn between the features and phenomena of the development of Paris with other world cities; as an auxiliary aid Boutier adds — as sections of his Bibliographie — La cartographie urbaine des villes françaises (p. 409-415) and La cartographie urbaine des villes étrangères (p. 415-429). The author typifies chronologically the cartographic image of Paris as La ville circulaire' (following the near-circular representation of the anonymous MS known as La Grande Gouache of c.1540), La ville royale (from the plans of François Quesnel and of Benedit Vassalieu of 1609 onwards), La ville réorientée (from Albert Jouvin de Rochefort's plan of 1672-74), and as Le plan géographique(from the 1728 plan of Jean Delagrive). He elucidates how the form and purpose of the plans were reflected in their general design and specific detail; although these four eras provide an innovation date their typifying features overlapped into the subsequent period, and occasionally reappeared — somewhat anachronistically — later.
Other major sections follow: L'art de la mesure, La vérité des plans, Le roi, le bureau de la Ville et la capitale, Usages privés, and Produire, publier et vendre des plans de Paris (some statistics on map production here, which demonstrate apogee of the period 1750-99).
In addition to the personal names index are others of plan titles, of themes and iconography (again cf Vallée), of dated plans, of works containing plans of Paris, of places of publication of the plans (cf history of the book and of printing), and of locations of exemplars. Two additional retrieval aids (these are both simple enough and expected in automated catalogues) would be welcomed by many curators of map collections; either or both of these search facilities are required to satisfy the demands of the media's (picture) researchers. One, an index identifying which plans are in Dutch/Flemish, English, French, German, Italian, or in Latin; and a second index, arranged by scale. Boutier or his collaborators have helpfully calculated the scale for each item, but — inevitably — many of the resultant Representative Fractions are approximate. Such an index (Echelles), for post-1800 plans, formed another section in Vallée's Table des matières.
The three authors have made an extensively impressive
search in Paris (both inside and outside the BnF),
France, Europe, and in North America for items not
recorded by Vallée, and have provided a
miniaturised image of an exemplar of one state of nearly
all: curators and collectors should be most grateful for
this. But they note lacunae and lost items too. No copy
in London is recorded for Boutier item no. 2.B - the 1497
issue of H. Schedel's Registrum huius operis libri cronicar[um] cum
figuris et ymaginibus … - yet there is one
in the catalogue of the Library of the Royal Geographical
Society (with IBG). All seven maps (and several more
plates) from Les beautés de la France (Paris
: Danet, 1724) - items 178.B to 184.B inclusive - can be
found in a 4-volume grangerised L'Atlas curieux/Suite de l'Atlas
curieux of N. de Fer in the RGS (with IBG) Map
Room: no copies are recorded in Boutier beyond France and
Belgium. Item 240 (B.-A. Jaillot's Plan de la ville de Paris et de ses
Faubourgs ), under state E of 1767, has the remark
Aucun exemplaire connu à ce jour
…
: an exemplar is recorded in
the RGS-IBG Map Room catalogue.
For the 1776-dated Plan de Paris Pour servir à la I.[re] partie de l'Itineraire de cette Capitale — item 313 in its edition Ab (Paris : Nyon l'aîné, 1781) — Boutier records three copies only (in France, one of which lacks the plan): a fourth (with plan) is in the Fordham Collection of the RGS-IBG Library. Also in the Fordham Collection is the only other recorded copy, apart from those five in France and one in Yale University Library, of the 8th edition by L.-V. Thiéry of Le voyageur à Paris, Extrait du Guide des Amateurs & des Etrangers Voyageurs à Paris … (1790) that contains item 334 (R. Phelipeau's Nouveau Plan de Paris). Of item 356 — a circular plan of Paris bound in the Almanach national, géographique et portatif … utile … pour tous Etats (Paris : Desnos, [1792]) — the authors cite an unicum in the BnF; but a second exemplar can be added: that in the Fordham Collection.
The natural historian, brewer, barrister, county
administrator, farmer, map collector, scholar, author
— and francophile — Sir H.G. Fordham
(1854-1929) is credited still as being both a pioneer in
carto-bibliography and the inventor of the term
(1). In 1914 Oxford University Press published
his Studies in carto-bibliography, British and French
…; his Les routes de France : étude
bibliographique sur les cartes-routières …
de France suivie d'un catalogue des itinéraires
… 1552-1850 was published in Paris in 1929
by Honoré Champion — the publisher of
Vallée's 1908 work! Indeed, Fordham found more
sympathy in Paris. On 18 November 1910 he wrote to Edward
Heawood (RGS Librarian) about "… my desire to
see the study of the historical & bibliographical side of
cartography developed. I suppose there is no hope of the
R[oyal]. Geographical Society giving any favour to this
idea, & that, possibly, it may be best to make inquiries
in Paris — where my work — such as it is
— is more favourably received than on this side of
the Channel
. In 1928 Fordham gave the Society
£200.00 as the basis for a fund for the
encouragement of carto-bibliography; a triennial award
was resurrected in 1993. Just before his death he
received the news that the Société de
Géographie (Paris) had awarded him its gold medal
in recognition of his French carto-bibliographical work.
His collection of road books, itineraries, guides, and
many atlases & maps - especially strong in French items
— was bequeathed to the RGS in 1929 (2) (3).
Lastly, from 1854 to March 2000 the Map Room of the RGS was freely open to the public for reference purposes. Upon re-opening in 2004 the Society's Collections will again — as shortly prior to their closing in February 2002 — have to introduce a modest daily access fee to non-members; the Society no longer receives government support. We hope to see, and to help, the revisers of the second edition of Boutier's most welcome opus — or, indeed, any collector, curator, author, picture researcher, or carto-bibliographer!
(1) The history of cartography, volume 1 edited by J.B. Harley & David Woodward (Chicago ; London : University of Chicago Press, 1987), ISBN 0-226-31633-5, p. 20
(2) 'The Fordham Collection at the RGS : an introduction' by M.J. Freeman and J. Longbotham, in The Geographical Journal (London), July 1980, vol. 146(2), pp. [218]-231
(3) The Fordham Collection : a [short title] catalogue compiled by M.J. Freeman & J. Longbotham (Norwich : Geo Abstracts [for the Institute of British Geographers' Historical Geography Research Group (as its Research Paper Series, ISSN 0143-683X, no 5)], 1981), ISBN 0-86094-065-9
by Francis Herbert (Curator of Maps, RGS-IBG)