Reading a Vision of Space: The Geographical Map Collection of Charles‐Etienne Coquebert de Montbret (1755–1831)
Charles‐Etienne Coquebert de Montbret owned a collection of 868 manuscript and printed maps, which he classified and described in detail in a catalogue. The collection, only recently rediscovered, is particularly valuable because it not only reflects the collector's main interests but also contains a large number of maps bearing his annotations and colouring. Personal additions such as these afford a rare insight into a map owner's, or map user's, mind, and Coquebert de Montbret's collection enables us to understand the cartographical practices adopted by one individual in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Coquebert de Montbret's interest in physical geography emerges clearly, especially in the way he set about compiling the geological map of France which he published in 1823 with Jean‐Baptiste Julien Omalius d'Halloy. Examples of the three main ways he made use of his maps—to locate towns and regions, to record geographical information and to make sense of space—are discussed in this paper.