1757 Spanish Edition of the Buache / De l'Isle Sea of the West Map

Phillipe Buache (February 7, 1700 - January 24, 1773) was a late 18th century French cartographer and map publisher. Buache began his cartographic career as the workshop assistant and apprentice to the important and prolific cartographer Guillaume de L'Isle. Upon De L'Isle's untimely death, Buache took over the publishing firm cementing the relationship by marrying De L'Isle's daughter. Over the years, Bauche republished many of De L'Isle's maps and charts. Buache was eventually appointed Premier Geographe du Roi, a position created-for and previously held by Guillaume de L'Isle. Buache is most respected for his introduction of hachuring as a method from displaying underwater elevation on a two dimensional map surface. Buache compiled maps based upon geographic knowledge, scholarly research, the journals of contemporary explorers and missionaries, and direct astronomical observation. Nevertheless, even in 18th century Paris geographical knowledge was severely limited - especially regarding those unexplored portions of the world, including the poles, the Pacific northwest of America, and the interior of Africa and South America. In these areas the Buache, like his primary rival Robert de Vaugondy, must be considered a speculative geographer or 'positive geographer'. Speculative geography was a genre of mapmaking that evolved in Europe, particularly Paris, in the middle to late 18th century. Cartographers in this genre would fill in unknown areas on their maps with speculations based upon their vast knowledge of cartography, personal geographical theories, and often dubious primary source material gathered by explorers and navigators. This approach, which attempted to use the known to validate the unknown, naturally engendered many rivalries. Buache's feuds with other cartographers, most specifically Didier Robert De Vaugondy, resulted in numerous conflicting papers being presented before the Academie des Sciences, of which both were members. The era of speculatively cartography effectively ended with the late 18th century explorations of Captain Cook, Jean Francois de Galaup de La Perouse, and George Vancouver. Buache was succeeded by his nephew Jean-Nicholas Buache de Neuville. More by this mapmaker...

Joseph-Nicolas De l'isle (April 4, 1688 – September 11, 1768) was a French astronomer and cartographer. He was the younger brother of the illustrious Geographer to the King, Guillaume De l'isle. He studied astronomy under Joseph Lieutaud and Jacques Cassini. In 1714 he entered the French Academy of Sciences; from 1719 to 1722 he was employed at the Royal observatory, and would meet Halley in 1724. In 1725 he was among the Western academics invited to Saint Petersburg by Tsar Peter the Great; his appointment to the Russian Academy would be both lucrative and academically to his profit, giving him access to the most current surveys of the easternmost reaches of the Russian Empire, including the revelations of Vitus Bering. He personally participated in expeditions to Siberia, with the object of studying astronomical events observations but also making cartographic, ethnographic and zoological observations. He was invited to collaborate with Ivan Kirilov on a planned atlas of the Russian Empire, but disagreements about methodology limited his engagement and the Atlas was abandoned at Kirilov's death in 1737. De l'Isle's extreme rigor, too proved to be frustratingly slow for the Academy, leading to his dismissal from the Atlas project in 1740. Accusations that he was sending secret documents to France surfaced as well. As De l'Isle's position grew increasingly untenable, he would request permission to leave Russia in 1743, which he would do in 1747. Ironically, the Atlas Rossicus would be published under De l'Isle's name; historians disagree whether the honor was justified. Upon his return to France, De l'Isle would vigorously publish maps containing the geographical data he gathered during his Russian tenure, to the extent that the accusations of his theft of secret Russian cartographic information appear credible. He would work extensively with his nephew-in-law, Philippe Buache, in publicizing an array of maps revealing the Russian discoveries in conjunction with an array of less credible cartographic revelations in the Pacific Northwest of America. Later, he would be instrumental in spurring the international effort to coordinate observations of the 1761 Transit of Venus, despite the execution of the observations being interfered with by the Seven Years' War. Learn More...

Andrés Marcos Burriel y López (1719–1762) was a Spanish Jesuit historian and a key figure of the Spanish Enlightenment, most notable for editing Miguel Venegas' 1757 Noticia de la California, the first dedicated history of Spanish California. He was born in Buenache de Alarcón on November 19, 1719, studied at the Colegio Imperial de Madrid, and was ordained in 1743. He had intended to join the Jesuit missionaries in California but was instead assigned to investigative archival work in Spain, mainly to purge documents from the archives that related to Royal power over church authorities. With the accession of Prime Minister Richard Wall, Burriel was ordered to stop this work and return the documents he had collected; these were seized in 1756.

In 1754, Burriel was commissioned to edit and complete Miguel Venegas' unpublished 1730 Empresas Apostólicas, transforming it from a largely hagiographical work into a modern natural history. It would be published under Venegas' name in Madrid in 1757 and then translated to English (London, 1759), French (Paris, 1767), and other languages. Learn More...

Miguel Venegas (1680 - 1764) was a Spanish colonial Jesuit administrator active in Mexico. Venegas was born in Puebla and served mostly in central Mexico. He is best known for his published reports on the Christianization of the indigenous peoples of the southern Baja California peninsula. His writings include the first history of California, which is rich in geographical, historical, and ethnographic detail, despite his never having actually been to Baja California. He was born in Puebla and lived most of his life in central Mexico. His report on the efforts of the Society of Jesus in California would be derived from published Jesuit reports and those of the friars themselves, as well as correspondence with missionaries in the field. His manuscript was completed in 1739 and sent to Spain for publication. There it sat, largely thanks to the contentious relationship between the Society of Jesus and the Spanish Crown. The Jesuit historian Andrés Marcos Burriel revised the manuscript in 1750, and in this form, it would eventually be published in 1757 as Noticia de la California. The work would be translated into English, Dutch, French, and German, becoming the foundational source on life in California. Venegas also wrote biographies of prominent missionaries, manuals for parish priests, and other religious works. Learn More...