[Map of Aragon, Spain] Royaume d’Arragon divisé en sept Dioeceses et en

Early map of Aragon, centred on Zaragoza. It extends from the coast of Valencia to the Bishopric of Pamplona. It was made by the notable French cartographer, Nicolas Sanson, in 1663. It presents an ornate cartouche, graduated margins, orography in profile, hydrographic network, political division with colour lines and abundant toponymy. Nicolas Sanson was born in Abbeville, a town in the French region of Picardy, in the year 1600. As a young man he was a passionate historian educated by the Jesuit order. It has been speculated that Sanson devoted himself to cartography in order to be able to illustrate his work in ancient history. Whatever his motivation for pursuing a career in map publishing, Sanson was undoubtedly the most prolific French cartographer during the reign of Louis XIV, attracting the attention of Cardinal Richelieu and becoming geography tutor to Louis XIII and Louis XIV. He was named Géographe Ordinaire du Roi in 1630. Sanson is considered the founder of modern geography and of the French School of Cartography. It is generally accepted that the so-called Golden Age of French cartography originated with his publications. Throughout his career, Sanson published some 300 maps and two world atlases. He made his first map when he was 16 years old and published his first atlas in 1645. He is well known for his monumental atlas Cartes Générales de Toutes les Parties du Monde, published in 1654, with several later editions, the last of which received the name Cartes Générales de la Géographie Anciennes et Nouvelles and was published in 1676. However, he achieved fame with the preparation of several maps that became an obligatory reference for other cartographers and influenced the way in which the continents were delineated for decades. After his death, his successors continued to manage the successful family business, in particular thanks to the association with Pierre Duval (Sanson’s son-in-law) and with Alexis Hubert Jaillot. Both re-engraved many of his plates and prepared the unfinished maps that Sanson no longer had the opportunity to print. The Sanson dynasty is frequently credited with planting the seeds of what was the golden age of French cartography, which competed with the Dutch school. The members of the Sanson family were esteemed as the principal cartographers in France for nearly a century.