Le Neptune françois

Le Neptune françois (1693) is the most beautiful sea atlas published in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century (by Pieter Mortier).

Competition among cartographers

With this publication, Pieter Mortier (1661-1711) wanted to compete with De nieuwe groote lichtende zeefakkel, the impressive mariner's guide with which Johannes van Keulen (1654-1715) had acquired a monopoly position in the field of maritime cartography from 1681 onwards.

New French maritime atlas

In the 1680s, the French minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683) commissioned a group of mathematicians and astronomers from the Académie Royale des Sciences, in collaboration with hydrographers of the French navy, to map the coasts of continental Europe from Norway to Gibraltar. The result of this undertaking was a magnificently engraved atlas in 29 sheets. Published under the supervision of the royal geographer Alexis-Hubert Jaillot (1632-1712), it rolled off the presses of the Imprimerie Royale in Paris in 1693.

Pieter Mortier acquires the rights for the Republic

That same year, Pieter Mortier's reprint, identically engraved and printed, appeared in Amsterdam. Mortier, the son of a French political refugee, had been granted the privilege in 1690 to distribute the maps and atlases of French publishers in Holland. He interpreted this privilege liberally. Unable to obtain the original copper plates, he had the maps re-engraved. He then released the atlases bearing the original imprint. This was also the case with Le Neptune françois, which is therefore a so-called "contrefaçon": a reprint.

Addition of English maps engraved by Romeyn de Hooghe

Mortier offered no fewer than three different editions: in addition to the French edition, an English and a Dutch one were also published. As late as 1693, he published a second volume, Cartes marines à l'usage des armées du roy de la Grande Bretagne. In this volume, usually included with Le Neptune françois, we find nine large-format maps that, unlike the first volume, are not of French, but of English origin. They were designed and engraved by Romeyn de Hooghe, who was then in London in the service of King-Stadtholder William III. The maps are among the highlights of Dutch maritime cartography in the seventeenth century. The copy of the Neptune Francois in the Royal Library is bound together with the Marine Maps. All the maps and the beautiful frontispiece designed by Jan van Vianen are hand-colored.

References

• Cornelis Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici IV: Celestial and maritime atlases and pilot books. Amsterdam, 1970, p. 425.