Lot n° 9
Estimation :
1000 - 1500
EUR
Result without fees
Result
: 800EUR
César François CASSINI DE THURY (1714-1784) astronome et cartographe, auteur de la fameuse Carte de France.
L.A.S., to "Monseigneur"; 1 page and a half in-fol.
Interesting letter about his cartographic campaigns and the financing of the edition of his maps.
Cassini presents his work which "contains the detail of all the operations that I made in Germany with regard to the geography, and is a model of celuy that I propose to execute in Italy". He recalls that he had made the campaigns in Flanders and, encouraged by M. d'Argenson, had established maps which the marshal of Saxony used "to form the plans of his operations". The King then charged him with the execution of the map of France. "As soon as the map of France appeared, all the sovereigns [...] did me the honour of showing their admiration, and the desire they had that the same plan be followed for the description of their states. The duke of Choiseul urged him to begin with Germany: "This work would be executed in two campaigns and the cost of each year would be only 6000ll". He insists on the imperfection of the current maps which "comes from the fact that one was always satisfied with the estimate, and of the rough operations, and that one never began by establishing exact positions, and geometrical, how much money one had spent uselessly in the office of the geographers engineers before one had formed a plan in conformity with mine". His Italian origins will facilitate his task in the homeland of his ancestors, and although devoted to his new country, he would see "with sorrow that Italy was the only one where I would not have left traces of the reform that I made in geography, the object of the expenditure should not stop the execution of a project"...
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