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Description

Scarce and highly detailed map of the Caribbean, extending from the Southern tip of Florida and the Canal di Bhama to the Yucatan, to the Easternmost Antilles and Trinidad, centered on Hispaniola. Includes a number of smaller islands, including the Caymans, Virgin Islands and smaller islands of the coast of Mexico. A marvelous note near the top of the map identifieds Guanahani, the island discovered by Columbus, which is now believed to be San Salvatore. A nice dark impression, including rhumb lines. The copy has been cleaned and de-acidified, and shows a bit of discoloration on the verso, but only the faintest hint of the prior soiling nearly Margarita Island off the Coast of Venezuela. A nice example of this increasingly scarce map.

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.