File:Atlas administratif de Paris, Untitled map - Princeton University.jpg

English: Atlas administratif de Paris ([Paris: Lottin de St-Germain, 1828?]) [Marquand Art Library]. Seventeen copperplate maps, fourteen with added color, each 35.3 × 46.8 cm. Each map was printed with a blank round title cartouche in the upper right, to be pasted over with a different engraved title label. The first edition appeared in 1821, and only about a dozen copies of that have been catalogued in national databases.

First urban thematic atlas. It consists of fourteen copies of the same map of Paris, each devoted to a specific subject identified in the title cartouche (such as lighting districts, sewers, markets, firefighting districts); hand-coloring adds the visual thematic layer. Princeton’s copy also includes three blank, uncolored copies of the map bound in the back—reserved, presumably, for future topics.

The title page, lacking in Princeton’s copy, carries a dedication to the “le comte Anglès, ministre d’état, préfet de police” (Jules-Jean-Baptiste Anglès, comte, 1778–1828, French politician). The brief prefatory text acknowledges that several of the maps may be “aussi curieux pour l’amateur, que nécessaires pour l’administrateur”: essentially, the atlas is intended as a bureaucratic tool. Maire says, for example, that it is important to know where the sewer lines run before initiating construction projects.