Carte de L'Isthme de Panama

This map focuses on a small section of Panama showing the routes across the Isthmus from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

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. 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.

This map focuses on the haunt of infamous English privateers such as Francis Drake and Henry Morgan, both of whom became knights due to their exploits in hijacking Spanish silver fleets or trains. The major city of Panama on the Pacific coast is the source of routes across the Isthmus used by mule trains to transport the goods and metals collected in Potosi and the Philippines to the Atlantic coast. These included the "Camino Real de Cruces" a partial land and river route between Panama City and Chagres; also shown is the "Camino Real" between Panama City and Portobelo, the other major Spanish Atlantic port shown on this map.
Original colour. [WIND4316]