Les Estats de la Couronne de Castille

Map of the southern states of the Crown of Castile, Andalusia, Granada and Murcia, made by Nicolas Sanson and published by Pierre Mariette. It accompanies another map to complete the kingdom of Castile, with its northern states. Very detailed, with abundant toponymy and orography in profile. Nicolas Sanson (1600-1667) was the most important French cartographer of the 17th century. He is even considered the father of the French school of cartography in its golden age, which spanned from the mid-17th century to the mid-18th century. He began making maps in the 1620s and in the following decade was already working with Melchior Tavernier. Later, Sanson worked with the publisher Pierre Mariette, with whom he published his great atlas Cartes générales de toutes les parties du monde (1658). Throughout his career he produced more than 300 maps and on his death, which occurred in 1667, his son Guillaume continued with the cartographic business in partnership with Alexis Hubert Jaillot, also becoming a renowned cartographer. Pierre Mariette (1569-1657) was a French publisher and engraver active in Paris during the first half of the 17th century. He achieved notable success as a publisher of artistic engravings, but turned towards the publication of maps when he bought the plates of Melchior Tavernier, in 1644. Around that year, Mariette associated with the notable Nicolas Sanson, at that time a rising figure in the field of French cartography. The Mariette-Sanson partnership consisted of Sanson drawing and obtaining the rights to the maps, and Mariette engraving them and paying the costly printing process. In this way, both shared the rights to the maps in perpetuity.