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Description

A rare and unusual pair of polar projections of the World, employing the horizon of Paris and the horizon of the Antipode of Paris.

During the beginning of the Enlightenment period in the late 17th-century, geographers increasingly became fascinated with portraying the globe through a variety of perspectives. This appealed to the era's ethic of empiricism and desire to quantitatively analyze the natural world.

The projection to the right shows the Northern Hemipshere, extending from the Northeast Passage and the North Pole across to much of North America, Europe, Africa and most of Asia. Notably, the projection is Paris-centric, with a horizontal line running through the city (located at 48'50" North).

In line with contemporary curiousity, the projection to the left is centered on the point that is on the direct opposite side of the globe from Paris (Paris' antipode), which is shown to be in the South Pacific Ocean, just below the Tasman Sea. Overall, the Southern Hemisphere is shown extending from Australia and Southeast Asia to the southern tip of South America, with a very distinctive (if completely fanciful) coastline for Antarctica.

A fascinating pair of projections from a rare geographical work published by Moullart-Sanson.