RIGHT: translated by William Hamilton, the 1661 first English edition of Blaise François de Pagan, the Comte de Merveilles’ Historical & Geographical Description of the Great Country and River of the Amazones in America..., contains this important folding engraved map showing French ambitions in the area.
The author actually urged Cardinal Mazarin to seize the region and set up colonies there - and a copy seen in a Lawrences of Crewkerne sale of July 6, in rebacked and repaired contemporary sheep and bearing the bookplate of Charles, Viscount Bruce of Ampthill, was sold for £1400.
