Chart of the port and harbour of Calvi, on the northwest coast of Corsica. The map is oriented with north to the left of the map.

Jacques-Nicolas
Bellin was one of the greatest 18th century map makers. He specialised in
hydrography and was appointed to the French Hydrographic office at the young
age of 18 in 1721. Twenty years later he was named the first “Ingenieur de la
Marine” for the “Depot des Cartes et Plans de la Marine” as well as
Hydrographer to Louis XV of France. Over a fifty year career, he published a
multitude of important maps often from first hand sources provided by naval
officers, merchants and government sources. His level of access was
extraordinary. As well as publishing his own atlases, he was a contributor to
many seminal French works on exploration, including Abbee Raynal’s “Histoire
des Deux Indes”, Abbee Prevost’s “Histoire Generale des Voyages” and Pierre de
Charlevoix’s “Histoire et Description Generale de la Nouvelle France”.



In 1762, Bellin decided to publish one of his most
popular and accessible works: “Le Petit Atlas Maritime”. The work came out in
1764 in five volumes and proved extremely popular. Many of the maps were
reduced versions which Bellin had either contributed or published previously.
However, there are some notable exceptions, such as his famous map of
Manhattan, which was sourced from a manuscript map by J.B.L. Franquelin drawn
in 1693. The five volumes usually contain between 575 and 590 maps with
variations noted between individual examples. As the preparation took only two
years, it is very likely that Bellin had a majority of these copper plates
already available. The initial financial support for the atlas was from
Etienne-Francois, Duc de Choiseul, a highly placed French politician who was
credited for strengthening both the army and navy. Due to its accessibility, he
perceived the ”Petit Atlas Maritime” as a method of publicising both the work
of the “Depot de la Marine” and the Navy to the general public. Bellin includes
a long dedication to Choiseul on the front of each volume.



For collectors today, the work presents one of the
widest selection of extremely desirable smaller maps. They provide clear,
concise and attractive geographical records of some of the most inaccessible
and exotic areas of the world in the mid-18th century. Bellin was part of a
group called “Les Philosophes”, the French counterpart to the pioneers of the
English Age of Reason and his maps are a lasting legacy from the Age of French
Enlightenment.

Calvi is an ancient town on the Corsican coast and is believed to have been the birthplace of Christopher Columbus. Corsica was part of the Genoese Republic at the time of his birth. In 1755, after decades of rebellion, Corsica declared independence but this short period ended when France conquered the island in 1769. Later, in 1794, at the Siege of Calvi, Horatio Nelson lost his eye in that conflict.
Original colour. [MED2440]