Detailed map of the region from Greece, Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean to Armenia and the Caspian Sea.
The map shows region through which the Greek general Xenophon lead his troops in retreat from Babylon. The map shows Turkey and Asia Minor, naming all the great cities of the region including Bagdad, Babylon, Aleppo, and Constantinople. The Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and the Mediterranean can all be seen.
Xenophon led the Ten Thousand, a force of mainly Greek mercenary units who were hired to capture the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Younger. While their coup was successful militarily, Cyrus the Younger died and the troops were left in Assyria without employment. Following the assassination of Greek senior officers, the military genius Xenophon was elected to lead the troops home, which he helped do through numerous ruses, as recounted in his Anabasis.
Guillaume De L'Isle (1675-1726) is probably the greatest figure in French cartography. Having learned geography from his father Claude, by the age of eight or nine he could draw maps to demonstrate ancient history. He studied mathematics and astronomy under Cassini, from whom he received a superb grounding in scientific cartography—the hallmark of his work. His first atlas was published in ca. 1700. In 1702 he was elected a member of the Academie Royale des Sciences and in 1718 he became Premier Geographe du Roi.
De L'Isle's work was important as marking a transition from the maps of the Dutch school, which were highly decorative and artistically-orientated, to a more scientific approach. He reduced the importance given to the decorative elements in maps, and emphasized the scientific base on which they were constructed. His maps of the newly explored parts of the world reflect the most up-to-date information available and did not contain fanciful detail in the absence of solid information. It can be fairly said that he was truly the father of the modern school of cartography at the commercial level.
De L’Isle also played a prominent part in the recalculation of latitude and longitude, based on the most recent celestial observations. His major contribution was in collating and incorporating this latitudinal and longitudinal information in his maps, setting a new standard of accuracy, quickly followed by many of his contemporaries. Guillaume De L’Isle’s work was widely copied by other mapmakers of the period, including Chatelain, Covens & Mortier, and Albrizzi.