Abstract: Maurice Bouguereau hired Gabriel Tavernierto to help him complete an atlas designed and destined for Henry IV of Navarre. The atlas would bring before the eyes of the King the sum of the provinces, regions, cities and rivers and, no less, a sense of the nation. Henry would have at his behest an instrument vital for tactical maneuvers to counter the massive forces of the Holy League. Were he to win the wars and ascend to the throne, the same object could facilitate taxation, administration, commerce, and management of the nation. The atlas would remind its first and best reader that its maps, born of the “theater” of war and strife, were political objects. Recalling the encyclopedic project that Abraham Ortelius had launched with his sumptuous Theatrum orbis terrarium, the book would show the King the sum, substance and virtue of his kingdom. To enhance and launch the atlas, Bouguereau obtained prefatory matter praising its virtue and giving good cause and reason to the local magistrates and dignitaries. Among these writers of praise was Béroalde de Verville, whose cartographic fiction, Le Voyage des princes fortunez (1610), a novel of more than 700 pages, is the main focus of this essay, especially in terms of the relation between image and text.

Key words: Béroalde de Verville, cartographic fiction, image, text