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Description

Nice example of Sanson's regional map of western Finland, along the Gulf of Bothnia.

The map covers the area which includes Oulu (Oulo or Ula) and Vaasa (Wassa or Mustafar), and is drawn from Atlas of Anders Bure (1626) and Isaac Massa.

The map notes that it is based upon the work of Anders Bure (Andreas Boreus)  (1571-1646) and Isaac Maasa (1586-1643).  Bure was a Swedish mathematician and mapmaker, who was the first Swede to undertake a serious effort to map the region.  His six sheet map of 1626,Orbis Arctoi nova et accurata delineatio, is perhaps the most important map of Scandinavia published in the first half of the 17th Century.  The biographical data for Bure given by the Library of Congress notes:

Andreas Bureus (1571--1646) is known as the father of Swedish cartography. He embarked upon a career in the Royal Chancellery in 1602 . . . In 1628 he was assigned the task of founding what was to become the Swedish National Land Survey. . . . Bureus completed [a 6-sheet] map of the Nordic countries in 1626 after several years of collecting data . . . The map is a testament to the imperial greatness of the Swedish Empire and was intended to be circulated among the prominent European courts. . . .

Isaac Massa was a Dutch grain trader, traveler and envoy to Russia. He wrote extensively about his travels to Russia and created some of the earliest maps of Eastern Europe and Siberia. Maasa is credited with 5 printed maps of Russia and its regions and 2 maps of Moscow, drawn surreptitiously from Russian sources. Massa's mapping of the Siberian coast was a significant advancement, which was subsequently copied by all the major mapmakers of the middle of the 17th Century.

Condition Description
Discoloration at centerfold.
Nicolas Sanson Biography

Nicholas Sanson (1600-1667) is considered the father of French cartography in its golden age from the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-eighteenth. Over the course of his career he produced over 300 maps; they are known for their clean style and extensive research. Sanson was largely responsible for beginning the shift of cartographic production and excellence from Amsterdam to Paris in the later-seventeenth century.

Sanson was born in Abbeville in Picardy. He made his first map at age twenty, a wall map of ancient Gaul. Upon moving to Paris, he gained the attention of Cardinal Richelieu, who made an introduction of Sanson to King Louis XIII. This led to Sanson's tutoring of the king and the granting of the title ingenieur-geographe du roi

His success can be chalked up to his geographic and research skills, but also to his partnership with Pierre Mariette. Early in his career, Sanson worked primarily with the publisher Melchior Tavernier. Mariette purchased Tavernier’s business in 1644. Sanson worked with Mariette until 1657, when the latter died. Mariette’s son, also Pierre, helped to publish the Cartes générales de toutes les parties du monde (1658), Sanson' atlas and the first French world atlas.