In our current age of apps, able to tell us exactly where we are in the world at any time, it’s hard to imagine an era in which most people would never have seen a map. The average English person of the mid-sixteenth century would have had little idea of the overall shape of their own country, let alone a foreign one. And even the merchants and elites who did have access to maps did not have an entirely accurate picture. Before the systematic adoption of trigonometric surveying, as well as the ability to accurately calculate longitude by observing Jupiter’s moons using telescopes, the process involved a lot of guesstimation. When the new techniques were introduced towards the end of the seventeenth century, the results could come as quite a shock. Louis XIV, when shown a revised map of his country, allegedly remarked that he had lost more land to his astronomers than to his enemies. France was a lot thinner than everyone had supposed.
Anton Howes, “The House of Trade”, Age of Invention, 2019-11-13.
