Guillaume de L’Isle

Guillaume Delisle, also spelled Guillaume de l'Isle, (French: [ɡijom dəlil]; 28 February 1675, Paris – 25 January 1726, Paris) was a French cartographer known for his popular and accurate maps of Europe and the newly explored Americas.

Deslile was the son of Marie Malaine and Claude Delisle (1644–1720). His mother died after childbirth and his father married again, to Charlotte Millet de la Croyère. Delisle and his second wife had as many as 12 children, but many of them died at a young age. Although the senior Delisle had studied law, he also taught history and geography. He had an excellent reputation in Paris’ intellectual circles and served as a tutor to lords. Among them was the duke Philippe d’Orléans, who later became regent for the crown of France, and collaborated with Nicolas Sanson, a well-known cartographer. Guillaume and two of his half-brothers, Joseph Nicolas and Louis, ended up pursuing similar careers in science.

While his father has to be given credit for educating Guillaume, the boy showed early signs of being an exceptional talent. He soon contributed to the family workshop by drawing maps for his father’s historical works. Some have questioned the authorship of these first maps, saying that Delisle only copied what his father had done before him. In order to perfect his skills, Guillaume Delisle became the student of the astronomer Jean-Dominique Cassini. Early on he produced high-quality maps, the first being his Carte de la Nouvelle-France et des Pays Voisins in 1696.

At 27, Delisle was admitted into the French Académie Royale des Sciences, an institution financed by the French state. After that date, he signed his maps with the title of “Géographe de l’Académie”. Five years later, he moved to the Quai de l’Horloge in Paris, a true publishing hub where his business prospered. Delisle’s progress culminated in 1718 when he received the title of Premier Géographe du Roi. He was appointed to teach geography to the Dauphin, King Louis XIV’s son, a task for which he received a salary. Again, his father's reputation as a man of science probably helped the younger Delisle. Historian Mary Sponberg Pedley says, “once authority was established, a geographer’s name might retain enough value to support two or three generations of mapmakers”. In Delisle’s case, it could be said that his accomplishments surpassed his father’s. Up to that point, he had drawn maps not only of European countries, such as Italy, Spain, Germany, Great Britain, Poland, and regions such as the Duchy of Burgundy, but he had also contributed to the empire’s claims to recently explored continents of Africa and the Americas.

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