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Attractive original antique plan of the city of Candia, now known as Heraklion. The plan shows the walled fortifications of the city, which is now the most populous city and capital of the island of Crete.
The plan shows the port of Heraklion along with its defenses against land-based invasion. A key at the bottom denotes thirty-three points of interest in the town. Topographic detail and roads are shown in the surrounding countryside.
Heraklion, at the time of this map's creation, was under Ottoman control, having been captured in 1669 from the Venetians, following a 21-year siege. At the time, it was called "Kandiye" and would be renamed Heraklion during British occupation in the early 20th century.
Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772) was among the most important mapmakers of the eighteenth century. In 1721, at only the age of 18, he was appointed Hydrographer to the French Navy. In August 1741, he became the first Ingénieur de la Marine of the Dépôt des cartes et plans de la Marine (the French Hydrographic Office) and was named Official Hydrographer of the French King.
During his term as Official Hydrographer, the Dépôt was the one of the most active centers for the production of sea charts and maps in Europe. Their output included a folio-format sea atlas of France, the Neptune Francois. He also produced a number of sea atlases of the world, including the Atlas Maritime and the Hydrographie Francaise. These gained fame and distinction all over Europe and were republished throughout the eighteenth and even in the nineteenth century.
Bellin also produced smaller format maps such as the 1764 Petit Atlas Maritime, containing 580 finely-detailed charts. He also contributed a number of maps for the 15-volume Histoire Generale des Voyages of Antoine François Prévost.
Bellin set a very high standard of workmanship and accuracy, cementing France's leading role in European cartography and geography during this period. Many of his maps were copied by other mapmakers across the continent.
![(Atlas of the Aegean -- Extra Illustrated!) L'Egeo redivivo o' sia chorographia dell' arcipelago, e dello stato primiero, & attuale di quell' isole. . . [The Aegean revived, or the chorography of the archipelago, and of the original and current state of those islands. . .]](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/93229.jpg)
