66 - [Paris]. LA CAILLE, Jean de.

[Paris]. LA CAILLE, Jean de. Description of the City and Suburbs of Paris, in Twenty Plates... Paris: Jean de La Caille, 1714. Folio (29.5 x 32 cm), (43) leaves, including title page, dedication, preface, and table of contents, 22 engraved maps. 19th-century fawn half-basane with corners, ribbed spine, tan title label, gilt title (scuffing and wear on the binding, a few minor marginal restorations, a central water stain at the top of the pages, a few marginal ink stains at the bottom, the general map of Paris is missing). A rare atlas of Paris, considered the first neighborhood-by-neighborhood map of the capital. Compiled by Jean (II) La Caille (1645–1723), then printer and bookseller for the Police, who precisely describes the city’s 20 new districts, providing for each one a finely etched black-and-white map and a list of streets, places, details, etc... in accordance with the administrative division decreed by Louis XIV in 1702. In order to “establish an accurate police system to facilitate the enforcement of public order regulations,” the city is described in minute detail, with even the street lamps marked... The illustrations consist of 4 vignettes—adorn the title page, dedications, and alphabetical index, among other places—and 22 large copperplate engravings of Paris’s districts. Eleven in-text maps depict, among others, the districts of La Cité, Saint-Jacques, Sainte-Opportune, the Louvre, Saint-Eustache, Les Halles, La Grève, Saint-Paul, Sainte-Avoye, and Saint-Antoine, as well as Île Notre-Dame. The other 11, spanning a full or double page, are devoted to the neighborhoods of the Palais-Royal, Montmartre, Saint-Denis, Saint-Martin, the Temple, Place Maubert, Saint-Benoît, Saint-André-des-Arts, the Luxembourg, and Saint-Germain-des-Prés, as well as the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.