![[ London ] Londres By Alain Manesson Mallet](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/101851.jpg)
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Interesting early view of London, from Mallet's Description De L'Univers, first published in Paris in 1683.
The view is from a fictional hill in south London overlooking Southwark and the London Bridge, toward the City of London and its many church steeples.
The view was published less than 20 years after the infamous 1666 London Fire.
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).
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