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Engraving of the sun from Alain Manesson Mallet’s Description de l’univers, a cosmographic compendium intended to blend geography, astronomy, and natural philosophy for a courtly and educated audience. The Sun (Soleil) is represented as a fiery orb with complicated volcanos and bursts radiating beams of light into the terrestrial realm below.
Beneath the solar vision, an idyllic riverside landscape unfolds, with a stone bridge, grazing livestock, and classical buildings perched on cliffs—linking celestial and terrestrial realms in visual analogy.
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).
![De Zuid Zé Compagnie Door Wind In Top Gerezen Beklaagt nu Haar Verlies Met Een Bekommerd Wezen. [The South Sea Company, once risen high by the wind, now laments its loss with a troubled countenance.]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/96219.jpg)
