The Merian map of Paris (French: plan de Merian) was created in 1615 by
Matthäus Merian, the map presents a "
bird's eye view" looking
east with a scale of about 1 to 7,000. It originally consisted of two engraved plates (50 x 37 cm each) with the left and right halves of the map and was printed with 2 columns of portraits (each 50 x 13 cm) on the left and right sides of the respective map halves. The entire assembly was 50 x 101.5 cm.
[Boutier 2007, pp. 120–122.]
At the top, a banner with the title: "LE PLAN DE LA VILLE, CITE, VNIVERSITE ET FAVX-BOVRGS DE PARIS AVEC LA DESCRIPTION DE SON ANTIQVITE ET SINGVLIARITES" ("Map of the
town,
city
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
,
university and
suburbs
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
with the description of its antiquity and particularities").
In the upper left corner of the map, between the
Château de Vincennes
The Château de Vincennes () is a former fortress and royal residence next to the town of Vincennes, on the eastern edge of Paris, alongside the Bois de Vincennes. It was largely built between 1361 and 1369, and was a preferred residence, after ...
and the
Marets du Temple, are the
coat of arms of France and
Navarre
Navarre (; es, Navarra ; eu, Nafarroa ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre ( es, Comunidad Foral de Navarra, links=no ; eu, Nafarroako Foru Komunitatea, links=no ), is a foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, ...
, encircled by the necklaces of the
Orders of the Holy Spirit and
of Saint Michael to just its right, the coat of arms of Paris (a ship on a river) surrounded by a
crown of laurel leaves.
The portraits on the left, top to bottom are: the king, courtiers, nobles and merchants, peasants and commoners; on the right: the queen, ladies of the court, noble and bourgeois women, common women.
[
In the lower left of the map, beneath the farm of the ]Grange Batellière
Grange may refer to:
Buildings
* Grange House, Scotland, built in 1564, and demolished in 1906
* Grange Estate, Pennsylvania, built in 1682
* Monastic grange, a farming estate belonging to a monastery
Geography Australia
* Grange, South Austral ...
, one can read these four lines of verse:
On the right of the poem is inscribed the name of the author of the map: Matheus Merian Basiliensis fecit ("fecit" = "did" in Latin).
At the bottom of the map, there is an ornament with a large compass rose placed in the middle of the River Seine.
The Merian map was frequently used as the basis of subsequent maps, including those of Visscher (1618), Melchior Tavernier (ca. 1625–1635), Jacob van der Heyden (1630), Christophe Tassin (1634), Dubarle (ca. 1641), Giacomo Lauro (ca. 1642), and Martin Zeiler (1655). In turn, the map of Tassin served as the source of numerous later maps.[
]
References
;Notes
;Sources
*Boutier, Jean (2007). ''Les Plans de Paris'', second edition, pp. 120–122. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France. .
Further reading
*
External links
{{Commons category-inline, Merian plan of Paris
Maps of Paris
History of Paris
Maps of the history of France
Urban planning in France
1615 works
17th-century maps and globes