Description de l’univers..,, 1683

1683 (dated on Volume 4 of 5 of the first, and French, edition of Allain Manesson Mallet’s: “Description de l’univers..,.” published in Paris by Denys Thierry. These three maps are on consecutive right-hand pages of the copy in the possession of the New York Public Library: the page numbers make sense, but the “Figure” Roman numerals are out of sequence. Also, the third map appears to be printed from the same plate as the second map, with the addition of the phrase “Tome III” on the lower page margin. Why this third map was bound into the atlas, I can’t explain – but it illustrates the difficulty of accurately identifying the provenance of one of these maps merely by the plate image.