The genesis of the Cassini Map came during the reign of Louis XIV, with the creation of the
Academy of Sciences alongside the ambitions of
Jean-Baptiste Colbert for France's navy, the defence of her coasts and fixing the imprecision of the country's maps. At the time, distances between settlements to be portrayed on maps were often estimated by the time of the journey between them or by measuring the length of the road. Sometimes, triangulation was used - though often relying on the magnetic pin of a compass without concern for one's latitude. This would result in confounded errors when compiling these maps into one. Picard and La Hire write in 1672 that King Louis XIV instructed the Academy of Sciences to, "create a map of all of France with the greatest precision possible.", Cassini writes that in September 1672, M. Vivier had,
"come by order of the King" and was,
"employed by order of the King to work on the Map of the Kingdom under the direction of the Academy of Sciences." == Gallery ==