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Description

Finely Engraved Globe Gore From The Most Widely Acclaimed Terrestrial Globe of the 17th Century

A fine wide-margined example of Vincenzo Coronelli's large globe gore covering the Central parts of North America, from Coronelli's 42 inch Terrestrial Globe.

Coronelli's globe gore incorporates much of Coronelli's highly important geographical advances in the cartographic depiction of North America.

The gore is centered on the Great Lakes and the course of the Mississippi River, depicting the region from Texas to Florida in the south and extending to Hudson's Bay in the north, with the Great Lakes and a good part of Virginia and the Chesapeake depicted in the center of the image. It incorporates the most accurate depiction of the Great Lakes to date, potentially pre-dating the landmark Nolin-Coronelli Partie Occidentale . . . of 1687. The map is the most advanced treatment of the region following Sanson's Amerique Septentrionale of 1650, incorporating information derived from Louis Jolliet, Jacques Marquette, Louis Hennepin and Coronelli's close contact with other Jesuit explorers and travellers during his time in Paris.

The map depicts much of Coronelli's landmark geographical information in North America. The Mississippi River is placed about 600 miles too far to the west, based upon Hennepin and La Salle. In addition, there are marvelous projections of Florida, the Gulf Coast, and the Chesapeake. The map includes many scenes of indigenous Indians hunting, fishing, making canoes, etc. Notes regarding various French forts along the Mississippi, including La Salle's encampment in 1685. The fictious Lake May is still present. Many other important early notes on navigation, exploration, portages, and other interesting information in the Great Lakes region. Notes in the Upper Mississippi note the extent of Marquette and Jolliet's explorations in 1678. The tenative depiction of the course of the Ohio River is also noteworthy.

The map is richly illustrated with many more animal and geographical vignettes and other annotations. The cartography of the gore is very similar to Coronelli's 2 sheet map of North America, which appeared in his Atlante Veneto, and there is some question as to which was published first.

Vincenzo Coronelli apprenticed as a Xylographer, before joining the Convental Franciscans in 1665. In about 1678, after studying Astronomy and Euclid, Coronelli began working as a geographer and was commissioned to make a set of Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Ranuccio II Farnese, the Duke of Parma, which were 5 feet in diameter. Coronelli was next invited to Rome to construct a similar pair of Globes for Louis XIV. From 1681 to 1683, Coronelli lived in Paris, where he constructed a pair of 10 foot diameter globes for the King, at a weight of nearly 4000 pounds.

The fame and importance of Coronelli's globe led to the production of a 42 inch diameter globe in 1688, for which complete of examples reside in a number of major institutional collections around the world. Separate globe gore sheets from this famous globe periodically appear on the market. Coronelli worked for a number of years as a Geographer and Theologian, before returning to Venice in 1705, where he published his Atlante Veneto and founded the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti.

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli Biography

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718) was one of the most influential Italian mapmakers and was known especially for his globes and atlases. The son of a tailor, Vincenzo was apprenticed to a xylographer (a wood block engraver) at a young age. At fifteen he became a novice in a Franciscan monastery. At sixteen he published his first book, the first of 140 publications he would write in his lifetime. The order recognized his intellectual ability and saw him educated in Venice and Rome. He earned a doctorate in theology, but also studied astronomy. By the late 1670s, he was working on geography and was commissioned to create a set of globes for the Duke of Parma. These globes were five feet in diameter. The Parma globes led to Coronelli being named theologian to the Duke and receiving a bigger commission, this one from Louis XIV of France. Coronelli moved to Paris for two years to construct the King’s huge globes, which are 12.5 feet in diameter and weigh 2 tons.

The globes for the French King led to a craze for Coronelli’s work and he traveled Europe making globes for the ultra-elite. By 1705, he had returned to Venice. There, he founded the first geographical society, the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti and was named Cosmographer of the Republic of Venice. He died in 1718.