The Merian map of Paris () was created in 1615 by
Matthäus Merian the Elder. It presents a
bird's eye view
A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object or location from a very steep viewing angle, creating a perspective as if the observer were a bird in flight looking downward. Bird's-eye views can be an aerial photograph, but also a drawi ...
looking
east
East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
with a scale of about 1 to 7,000. The map originally consisted of two engraved plates (50 x 37 cm each) with the left and right halves of the map and was printed with 2 columns of portraits (each 50 x 13 cm) on the left and right sides of the respective map halves. The entire assembly was 50 x 101.5 cm.
[Boutier 2007, pp. 120–122.]
At the top is a banner with the title: ("Map of the
town
A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city.
The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...
,
city
A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...
,
university
A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...
and
suburbs
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
with the description of its antiquity and particularities"). In the upper left corner of the map, between the
Château de Vincennes
The Château de Vincennes () is a former fortress and royal residence next to the town of Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris, alongside the Bois de Vincennes. It was largely built between 1361 and 1369, and was a preferred residence, after ...
and the
Marets du Temple, are the
coat of arms of France
The coat of arms of France is an unofficial emblem of the France, French Republic. It depicts a lictor's fasces upon branches of laurel and oak, as well as a ribbon bearing the national motto of . The full Achievement (heraldry), achievement inc ...
and
Navarre
Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...
, encircled by the necklaces of the
Orders of the Holy Spirit and
of Saint Michael to just its right, the
coat of arms of Paris
The coat of arms of Paris () shows a silver sailing ship on waves of the sea in a red field, with a chief showing the royal fleurs-de-lis. Originally introduced in the 14th century, its current form dates to 1853. The city motto is (" heis tos ...
surrounded by a
crown of laurel leaves. The portraits on the left, top to bottom are: the king, courtiers, nobles and merchants, peasants and commoners; on the right: the queen, ladies of the court, noble and bourgeois women, common women.
[ In the lower left of the map, beneath the farm of the Grange Batellière, there are four lines of verse:
On the right of the poem is ]inscribed
An inscribed triangle of a circle
In geometry, an inscribed planar shape or solid is one that is enclosed by and "fits snugly" inside another geometric shape or solid. To say that "figure F is inscribed in figure G" means precisely the same th ...
the name of the author of the map: ("did" in Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
). At the bottom of the map, there is an ornament with a large compass rose
A compass rose or compass star, sometimes called a wind rose or rose of the winds, is a polar coordinates, polar diagram displaying the orientation of the cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west) and their points of the compass, inter ...
placed in the middle of the River Seine
The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres p ...
.
The Merian map was frequently used as the basis of subsequent maps, including those of Visscher Visscher is a Dutch language, Dutch occupational surname. ''Visscher'' is an archaic spelling of Dutch ''visser'' meaning "fisherman". Varianta are ''Visschers'' and '' De Visscher''. The latter form is now most common in East Flanders. (1618), Melchior Tavernier (–1635), Jacob van der Heyden (1630), Christophe Tassin
Christophe Tassin (born in the early 1600s in France; died in 1660 in France), also known as Nicolas Tassin, Christophe Nicolas Tassin or Christophe Le Tassin, was a French cartographer, known for his atlases of France, Spain, Germany and Switzerla ...
(1634), Dubarle (), (), and Martin Zeiler
Martin Zeiler (also ''Zeiller'', born 17 April 1589 in Ranten, died 6 October 1661 in Ulm) was a Baroque era German author.
Zeiler's father was an exile from Upper Styria, forced to emigrate due to his protestant confession.
Zeiler was schoo ...
(1655). In turn, the map of Tassin served as the source of numerous later maps.[
]
References
*Boutier, Jean (2007). ''Les Plans de Paris'', second edition, pp. 120–122. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France. .
Further reading
*
External links
{{Commons category-inline, Merian plan of Paris
Maps of Paris
History of Paris
Maps of the history of France
Urban planning in France
1615 works
17th-century maps and globes