France Map 1863 Ancient Gaul Roman Provinces Atlas Print - Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux

Auguste-Henri Dufour drew this Gaule Ancienne in 1863 for his Atlas Universel, Physique, Historique et Politique de Géographie Ancienne et Moderne, which Armand Le Chevalier published in Paris, with Charles Dyonnet engraving the sheet on steel, Deletre the lettering and Louis Antoine the printing. The atlas of 40 maps was authorized for use in public schools by a ministerial decision of 8 December 1863, and the maps date from 1862 to 1865. This is a very large sheet, 78 by 57 centimeters at 1:2,315,000, hand-colored in outline with muted pastels, with relief in hachures and the prime meridian at Paris, and it shows Gaul in 1863, while Napoleon III was funding excavations at Alesia to find the site of Vercingetorix's last stand.

The map carries a reference list of the Roman provinces, so the regions of the country can be matched to the districts outlined in color. Gallia Narbonensis, Aquitania, Lugdunensis and Belgica are the large divisions, and the rivers and ranges that organized them, the Seine, the Rhône, the Alps and the Pyrenees, are drawn clearly. Lugdunum, today's Lyon, was the capital of the Three Gauls, and Massalia, Marseille, was the Greek port of the south. Alesia, in Burgundy, was where Caesar besieged Vercingetorix in 52 BC, and the emperor's interest made the siege fashionable in the year of this map. The sheet therefore connects the ancient provinces to the national story that a Second Empire pupil was taught.

A teacher of Latin or French history, a family from Burgundy or Provence, or a collector of grand school maps will find an impressive gift here. TheMapVault's Roman Gaul map of 1892 is a smaller sheet from the Nouvel Atlas Illustré with an inset of Lutèce, Wilkinson's of 1815 is a London Latin map with a Batavian inset, and Tanner's of 1826 is the Philadelphia version; this Dufour sheet is the French one, far larger than those, in outline pastels and measured from Paris. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print.