Les premiers guides français imprimés

Abstract

In the middle of the 16th century, Charles Estienne publishes the first French road guide La Guide des chemins de France. Although it is not a tourist guide in the current sense, Estienne proposes routes that inform the traveller about the curiosities, the monuments, the accommodation and the peculiarities of regions travelled through. At a time when there is no reliable cartographic representation, the work offers an orderly and highly hierarchical vision of the territory. Although they write in the continuity of La Guide, the successors or the plagiarists of Estienne will try hard to pursue a more literary purpose, thus losing what made its originality and modernity.

Keywords

• Charles Estienne
• curiosités du voyage
• espace du voyage
• France
• guide imprimé
• guide routier