Mer Noire ou Mer Maieure

Copper engraved double page, hand colored in outline map of the Black Sea region, with decorative cartouche. // Atlas of Europe, dedicated to Michel Le Tellier. With double page engraved decorative title page, unnumbered explanatory text and 12 folded maps of various Empires, Kingdom, States, Republics and Islands. Maps are copper engraved double page, hand colored in outline, with decorative cartouche, some engraved by A. Peyrounin. Showing major cities, towns, villages, rivers, mountains, drainage, etc. Relief shown pictorially. First volume of the first edition of Sanson's quarto atlas, a geographical description of the four continents of the world in separate volumes, L'Evrope, Asie, Afrique, Ameriqve, each with engraved title page, accompanied by text and folded maps, bound in full brown calf with rich gold decoration and gold title on spine. Published over the period 1648 to 1657, these are the first atlases published by Sanson, a noted French historian and cartographer, the geographer to the French king. Most of the maps were engraved especially for these works and are not reductions of larger previously published map