THE WORLD GLOBE ON THE DRESSER
Before the advent of the internet, geography in our peninsula
we studied with atlas and globe. Read more about the article The typewriter, this colored sphere kept the new students company. I never bothered to know its origins, at that time my interests as a teenager turned elsewhere.
Who knows why growing up, the objects take on previously unsuspected charm and quality. Traveling around Europe I have seen them of various sizes and with support bases from wood to Bakelite.
Of course I bought the ones that attracted me and pleased me aesthetically. The fact is that there is a lack of experience, I struggled to understand the period of the creation of the globe. Hence the need to get to know the object in question better and above all to trace the items from serious sellers who are always available and available to provide information.
GRAB THE FIRST APPLE
I therefore searched for information on the origins of this incredible object, always appreciated and collected.
In ancient times the representation of the earth as a ball is according to the testimonies that have come down to us, the work of the Greeks and the ancient Islamic world. Unfortunately, the artifacts were not found.
So in the beginning it was "the earthly apple" the most ancient globe to which we can refer.
Martin Behaim, a scholar of cartography and a lover of travel, on his return to Nuremberg he asked the city council to be able to create the famous globe.
L’Erdapfel,it was produced in collaboration with the artist Georg Glockendon and the painter Hans Storch.
For the execution of the work he used information from the study of Ptolemy for Geography,
from the work of Pliny the Elder for Natural History and news from the travels of Marco Polo.
In the fourteen hundred and ninety-two, "The earth apple / Erdapfel" was completed.
In the same year, Christopher Columbus had discovered the new continent of America. Being the return trip to Spain quite long,the news reached the ruler in March of the following year.
This explains why a single large mass of land is represented in Martin Behaim's globe, a Eurasian continent surrounded by islands and oceans.
In this beautiful globe we find the great artistic ability to adorn the object with many painted images, figures and objects along with a multitude of real and fictional animals.
Although the measurements and geographical peculiarities are very inaccurate, this globe with a diameter of fifty-one centimeters is absolutely spectacular.
(It can be admired at the Nuremberg Museum)
THREE INGREDIENTS, INTELLECT CREATIVITY AND PASSION.
Italian history begins like this:
At the beginning Vincenzo Coronelli was born in Venice in the 1600s. Of humble origins at the age of fifteen he went to study in a convent. Already the following year, the boy demonstrated his great intellectual capacity by seeing the "Sacred Profane Perpetual Calendar" printed in Venice. This almanac is his first work, it met with great success and was reprinted many times. The Venetian friars subsequently sent him to Rome to continue his studies, where in just three years he graduated in theology.
THE CREATION OF THE GLOBE
From that moment on, the door to success for the great geographer was wide open . Before the age of thirty on one of his trips to Parma,he built two globes of nearly two meters in diameter for the Farnese Duke ( over time they have been lost).
Vincenzo was later invited to Paris at the court of Louis XIV where he remained for some years.
In sixteen hundred and eighty-three he built two “celestial” globes for the ruler – terrestre ”with a diameter of four hundred and eighty-seven centimeters. (Fortunately, these works of his are kept at the National Library in Paris)
During other stays abroad,he built new even pocket globes,with diameters of six and twelve centimeters.
THE RETURN TO THE ORIGINS
On his return to Venice he founded the Cosmographic Academy of the Argonauts in one thousand six hundred and eighty-four.
Vincenzo Coronelli thanks to his vast geographical knowledge and great cartographic skills, in sixteen hundred and ninety-seven he put it up for sale
the "Book of globes of different sizes". The work included a series of forty-eight sheets engraved on copper to be glued onto spheres to obtain globes of various sizes.
The book featured both the celestial and terrestrial globe,the cards had a division of twelve spindles.
This work was strongly desired by Vincenzo because it allowed the large-scale use of globes, which previously were the exclusive prerogative of the noble class.
Coronelli died in his Venice at the age of sixty-eight, an intense life dedicated to the creation of encyclopedic works and to the study of his great passion for geography. His is a legacy of inestimable value.
Now as then, the great characters are the curious ones who want to study and try to experiment to give everyone something more.
