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Description

A very fine map of the Western Hemisphere including the discoveries made by Abel Tasman in Australia and an early image of the New Zealand coastline, plus California as an Island. The treatment of the Northeastern Coast of Asia and Japan are also quite unusual, including a representation of Terra di Iesso, the mythical land bridge which was frequently shown to extend from Asia to Alaska, with only the Straits of Anian separating the two continents.

California is featured as an island on the second Sanson model, with only C. Blanco named. To the north is Stretto d'Anian, northwest is Terra di Iesso, ("Scoperta dagli Holland, l'Anno 1643"), and farther west is Giaponi. The American west is dominated by Nuovo Mexico, in which live the Apaches, seemingly the only Indian tribe named. In the Pacific, portions of New Zealand, Van Diemens land, Carpentaria, and Nuova Guinea are shown. Shirley extolls the two world sheets as "a worthwhile addition to any collection. They combine the most up-to-date cartographical information with elegant engraving and retained accompanying decoration."

The decorative borders include co-ordinates and descriptions of signs of the zodiac. From Coronelli's Atlante Veneto. The Atlante was professionally designed as a continuation of Blaeu's Atlas Maior and by 1701 was extended to embrace up to twelve volumes.

Reference
Leighly 89; McLaughlin 105; Shirley 548.
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.