Medieval maps of Paris were oriented West-East, thus offering the best views of church facades!
Note that this is a personal opinion shared as a child with my grandfather after years of family diner in front of his Truschet map.
For sure, there is no connection with "rive-gauche" / "rive-droite", this expression is based on the flow of the Seine, here it would have been the opposite of the map.
Medieval West-East maps on wiki (West on the top, North to the left):
- 1530 Braun and Hogenberg engraved map [1]
- 1550 Truschet and Hoyau engraved map [2]
- 1615 Merian map [3]
- also the 1370 Gough Map of Britain [4]
Medieval maps of Paris were oriented West-East, thus offering the best views of church facades! Note that this is a personal opinion shared as a child with my grandfather after years of family diner in front of his Truschet map.
For sure, there is no connection with "rive-gauche" / "rive-droite", this expression is based on the flow of the Seine, here it would have been the opposite of the map.
Medieval West-East maps on wiki (West on the top, North to the left): - 1530 Braun and Hogenberg engraved map [1] - 1550 Truschet and Hoyau engraved map [2] - 1615 Merian map [3] - also the 1370 Gough Map of Britain [4]
[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_de_Braun_et_Hogenberg [2] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_de_Truschet_et_Hoyau [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merian_map_of_Paris [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gough_Map
Probably so that what Parisians call the "rive droite" (lit. right shore) is effectively on the right-side of the map.