France Map 1892 Roman Gaul Historical Print - Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux

L. Smith engraved this historical map of Gaul under the Romans for the Nouvel Atlas Illustré, Géographie Universelle, which J. Migeon directed and which was published in Paris in 1892 by the Direction et Administration, with Charles Lacoste drawing the sheet and A. Bizet lettering it. The map belongs to an atlas of sixty-six maps, bound in red cloth with gilt lettering, that was unusual for keeping hand coloring long after rivals had abandoned it, and its large sheet of 44 by 34 centimeters at 1:3,700,000 gives each Roman region its own tint, with hachured relief. An inset plan of Lutèce, the Roman Paris, and a vignette of the same city accompany the main map. It was drawn in 1892, when French schools and scholars were deeply interested in Gaul as the ancestral ground of the nation under the Third Republic.

Gaul passed into Roman hands through Julius Caesar's campaigns between 58 and 50 BC, and the map shows the regions into which Rome divided it. Lutetia, the settlement of the Parisii on the Île de la Cité, appears in its own inset and vignette as the Roman forerunner of Paris, while Lugdunum, today's Lyon, was founded in 43 BC and became the capital of the Three Gauls. Massalia, the Greek colony that became Marseille around 600 BC, was already ancient when the Romans arrived, and the southern province of Narbonensis grew up around it. The Rhône, the Seine and the Garonne were the highways of Roman Gaul and still define the geography of France. Together these details show how a Roman province laid the foundations of French cities.

A teacher of Latin, a student of Roman Europe, or a family from Lyon or Paris will find a memorable gift here, whether for a birthday or a graduation. TheMapVault's other France maps show the country as a modern state, and the companion geological sheet from the same 1892 atlas shows rocks rather than peoples, whereas this map looks back two thousand years to Roman Gaul with an inset of Lutèce. It is the only ancient-history map in the France group. 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.