A view of Kyoto from Alain Manesson-Mallet’s five volume description of the world ‘Description de L’Univers’, published first in 1683 in French, and then again in French and German in 1684 and 1685, followed by a final German edition of 1719.

Manesson-Mallet (1630-1706) was an engineer in the service of the King of Portugal. On his return to France, he was appointed Master of mathematics to the pages of King Louis XIV. In addition to his history of the world, he also wrote a book about fortifications ‘Les Travaux de Mars’, and another about surveying and mapmaking ‘La Geometrie Pratique, divisee en quatre livers’.