Ignace-Gaston Pardies (September 5, 1636 - April 21, 1673) was a French Jesuit scholar, mathematician, publisher, horologist, and astronomer active in the second half of the 17th century. Pardies was born in Pau and joined the Society of Jesus as a novitiate on November 17, 1652. In 1654, he entered the University of Toulouse, studying mathematics and natural philosophy. He was ordained in 1663 and took orders in 1665, after which he taught philosophy and mathematics at the Paris Collège de Clermont (Lycée Louis-le-Grand). He corresponded with the greatest polymaths of his generation, including Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727), Athanasius Kircher (1602 - 1680), Henry Oldenburg (1619 - 1677), Christiaan Huygens (1629 - 1695). His wide variety of works were by his contemporaries. His most significant work in terms of cartography is the celestial atlas, Globi coelestis in tabulas planas redacti descriptio, published posthumously in 1674. During Easter of 1673, he was ministering to the sick prisoners of Bicêtre Hospital, near Paris, from whom he contracted a fever and died a few days later. More by this mapmaker...

Guillaume Vallet (December 6, 1632 - January 1, 1704) was a French engraver active in the late 17th century in Paris and Rome. Vallet was the son of the Paris publisher and print seller Jean Vallet (c. 1636). He first studied engraving under Pierre Daret (1604 - 1678), who sometimes work for his father. From 1655 - 1661, Vallet and his childhood friend, engraver Étienne Picart (1632 - 1721), lived in Rome to studying engraving under the Italian masters. He was a member of the L'Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture from 1664. His students include Gaspard Duchange (1662 - 1757), and his sons, Jérôme (1667 - 1722) and Barthélemy Vallet (1674 - c. 1715). Jérôme Vallet inherited his father's position in the L'Académie, when the latter died in 1704. Vallet was buried in the cemetery of St. Benoit in the 5th arrondissement in Paris. Learn More...

Gaspard Duchange (April 9, 1662 - January 6, 1757) was a French engraver, publisher, and print dealers active in Paris. Duchange studied engraving under Guillaume Vallet (1632 - 1704) and Jean Audran (1667 - 1756), his style more closely resembling the latter. He became a member of the L'Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1707. He collaborated extensively with another Audran student, Nicolas-Dauphin de Beauvais (c. 1687 - 1763), who married his daughter. His own apprentices include Pierre-François Beaumont (1719 - c. 1777), brothers Charles Dupuis (1685 - 1742) and Nicolas-Gabriel Dupuis (1698 - 1771), and François-Bernard Lépicié (1698 - 1755). Learn More...