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SANSON, Nicolas, père & fils.
Die gantze Erd-Kugel,
bestehend in den vier bekannten Theilen der Welt als, Europa, Asia, Africa und America sampt schönen neuen und accuraten Land-Karten nebenst einer Geographischen und Historischen Beschreibung...
First German edition of Sanson's handsome atlas portatif, translated from the French continental volumes published in 1648, 1652, 1655, and 1657. The collation resembles closely the 1683 edition with 62 engraved maps, here with 15 maps of the Americas, 13 of Europe, 17 of Asia, and 18 of Africa. Nicolas Sanson père (1600-1667) began as a military engineer, but was encouraged by his publisher Melchior Tavernier to become a cartographer. Originally he worked in his native town of Abbeville (he is sometimes referred to as Sanson d'Abbeville), later moving to Paris. Considered by many as the founder of the French school of cartography, his maps, although "not nearly as ornamental as the maps of the Dutch school", their embellishment being "confined to a title cartouche for each map… they are very clear and neat, pleasing to the eye and of handy format" (Tooley). Sanson founded a dynasty consisting of his sons Nicolas le fils and Guillaume, and two grandsons Adrien and Pierre Moullars. His son was responsible for the maps which comprise L'Europe, published in the year in which he was killed in the fighting of the Frondes. A very suitably-bound and appealing copy.
4 parts bound in one, quarto (240 × 186 mm). Contemporary vellum, title inked to spine. Engraved allegorical frontispiece/title page with female figures with the attributes of the four continents, and 63 maps, 59 of them double-page, 5 folding. . Worm trails to both sets of endpapers, marginal worming to last three maps, vellum lightly rubbed and marked, else an excellent copy.
