Le Paris des Lumières. D'après le plan de Turgot (1734-1739)

Paris as drawn in 1734-1739 by Louis Bretez at the request of the provost Michel Etienne Turgot has not disappeared completely yet...

From the famous plan and the texts that come with it, an effort of imagination is required to relive Paris at the Enlightment period, Paris that was admired throughout Europe.
Who could guess that the Saint-Victor abbey used to face the university buildings of Jussieu? Sitting by the Innocents fountain, how would one know that one is actually sitting where the ancient cemetery of the Innocents used to be? Who would remember that one of the richest libraries of the 17th and 18th century, where scholars and writers came to study, used to stand east of Saint-Germain-des-Prés?
However, it only takes a walk around the Jardin des Plantes, a visit of the Place des Vosges or a stroll through the Marais too acknowledge the accuracy of Turgot's Map. The association of map extracts and coeval pictures (paintings, drawings and etchings) with modern photographs enables the reader/visitor to visit 114 remarkable places in Paris.

This Paris dreamt by Turgot is not the nostalgic story of alteration or disappearance of sites and monuments of the capital; it is the evocation, of the real life of a town, its memories, its sites...

You will also find in this catalogue 20 boards of Turgot's map reproduced in their entirety.