Nicholas Sanson D'Abbeville (1600-1667). Paris: Chez L’Autheur, [ca 1667]., 1667. 4to., (9 4/8 x 7 inches). Letterpress title-page with woodcut publisher’s device of flowers in a basket. 16 fine double-page engraved maps all mounted on guards and with original hand-colour in outline, and with engraved colophon reading "Chez Pierre Mariette Rue St. Jacques a l’Esperance". Contemporary calf, gilt. THE FIRST FRENCH ATLAS OF AMERICA An attractive copy. Sanson’s series of quarto atlases were originally published separately as "L’Europe" in 1648 by Sanson’s son, also Nicholas, who was tragically killed in the "Barricades" insurrection the same year, "L’Asie" in 1652, "L’Afrique" in 1656, and "L’Amerique" in 1657. The maps in this fine atlas include: Amerique Septentrionale, Isle d’Islande (1667), Le Canada, ou Nouvelle France, la Floride, Mexico, Guadalajara, Guatimala, Les Ilses Antilles, Amerique Meridionale, Terre Ferme de Grenade, Guiane, Le Perou, Le Chilli, Le Bresil, Le Paraguay, and Detroit de Magellan. Sanson published his first folio atlas in 1654, with 100 maps, engraved and printed by Pierre Mariette; each held the copyright to half of the maps which bear their separate imprints, and were issued progressively from 1630. Born in Abbeville, a town in the Picardy region of France, in 1600, Sanson was the most noted French cartographer in modern history. Mapmaker to Louis XIV, King of France, Sanson endowed his maps with the most recent geographical information as well as the finest and sharpest engraving of the period. His "Cartes Generales de Toutes les Parties du Monde" was the most important single product of French commercial cartography of the seventeenth century. Sanson sparked a renaissance in geographical endeavor in his native country, which had not been a major player on the international cartographic stage since the great Oronce Finé in the sixteenth century. With this atlas, Sanson laid the foundations of French domination in map production, initiating the so-called "French school of cartography," a school that was unprecedented in its attention to precision and scientific detail and discarded much of the decorative embellishments of previous maps as irrelevant. From Sanson's time in the second half of the seventeenth century until the latter part of the eighteenth century, French geographical conceptions were more influential than those put forward by any other nation. Phillips 1151; Sabin 76708; Shirley 6a.