Marseille Map 1840 City Plan Print - Old Port, Fort Saint-Jean, Fort Saint-Nicolas

Engraved by B. R. Davies, this plan of Marseille, labeled Ancient Massilia, was published in December 1840 by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge from 59 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London, and issued in 1844 in the Maps of the Society, published by Chapman and Hall. The Society, known as the SDUK, produced inexpensive maps to encourage broad use in education, and its city plans are of particular interest for their vignettes and great detail; this volume is the second edition, the first having been issued in numbers by Baldwin and Cradock. The plan measures 40 by 32 centimeters at 1:10,200, with the outline colored by hand and the relief shown by hachures. It shows Marseille in 1840, a Mediterranean port growing in the early industrial age, a decade after France took Algiers.

The plan centers on the Old Port, the harbor that has been the heart of Marseille since Greek settlers founded the trading colony of Massilia, the name printed in the title. At the mouth of the harbor stand Fort Saint-Nicolas and Fort Saint-Jean, which guarded the entrance and are visible on the map. The street network is drawn in detail, with the main thoroughfares and the smaller streets distinguished, and hachures give the surrounding hills their relief. Trade across the Mediterranean was the city's economy, and the conquest of Algeria in 1830 had added a new route to it. Taken together, these features show an ancient city in the process of expanding beyond its old harbor.

A traveler who has sailed into the Old Port, a family from Provence, or a collector of city plans will find an atmospheric gift here. TheMapVault's French city plans include the Paris sheets of 1872 and 1955, while this 1840 sheet is the Mediterranean port, engraved in London for a society devoted to cheap education. The Society's Marseille is a close look at one harbor, where the France maps in the collection show the whole country. 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.