Atlas De Trudaine
The Trudaine Atlas, created from 1745 to 1780, was the most accurate set of cartographic plans of roads and topography of France made during its period. The scale of the maps show far more detail than is found on the famous maps made by César-François Cassini de Thury and family. The 62 bound volumes contain more than 3,000 plates prepared by the central bureau of draftsmen. Each one was artistically hand-rendered with watercolor to show the presence and characteristics of the land, waterways, and vegetation; castles, private dwellings, and ruins; churches, convents, and cemeteries; extant roads, as well as planned road projects. Map plates were augmented with designs for locks, bridges, and other civil engineering projects where future improvements were deemed necessary.
Trudaine did not lived to complete his atlas for all of France; only the 22 regions governed by intendants were completed. (Maps in the atlas do not extend to Burgundy, Alsace, Provence, Languedoc, and Brittany or to regions recently conquered by Louis XIV, except for Metz – 3 map sets, and the Upper-Cambrésis (Cambrai region) – also 3 map sets.) However, more than half of France was covered by his work.
Today, Trudaine's immense atlas remains one of the most significant achievements in the development of cartography.
Read more about this topic: Daniel-Charles Trudaine