Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Volume I Part 10

[180] Las Casas. Historia. Tomo IV, lib. III, cap. ci, p.

377; Herrera, A. Descriptione las Indias Ocidentales.

Madrid, 1730. Tomo II, lib. II, cap. xix, p. 52.

[181] The first voyage around the world by Magellan. Tr. by Stanley of Alderley, Lord. London, 1874. (In: Hakluyt Society Publications. London, 1874. Vol. 52, p. xliv.); Pigafetta, Antonio. Magellan's Voyage around the world. The original text of the Ambrosian MS., with English translation, notes, bibliography, and index. Ed. by Robertson, J. A. Cleveland, 1906.

[182] Doc.u.mentos ineditos por la Historia de Espana. Madrid, 1847. Vol. I, p. 265.

[183] Harrisse, op. cit., p. 544.

[184] Doppelmayr. Nachrichten. pp. 45-50; Varnhagen, F. A.

de. Jo. Schoner e P. Apia.n.u.s (Benewitz) influencia de um e outro e de varios de seus contemporaneos na adopco do nome America. Vienna, 1872; Stevens, H. Johann Schoner, professor of Mathematics at Nuremberg; a reproduction of his globe of 1523 long lost; his dedicatory letter to Reymer von Streytperck and the 'De Moluccis' of Maximilia.n.u.s Transylva.n.u.s, with a new translation and notes of the globe.

Ed. with an introduction and bibliography by Coote, C. H.

London, 1888. pp. x.x.xix-xliv contains a short biography of Schoner; Algemeine Deutsche Biographie, "Schoner."

[185] Harrisse. B.A.V. No. 80. The full t.i.tle with bibliographical references are here given. In addition to the mere t.i.tle we read "c.u.m Globis cosmographicis: sub mulcta quinquaginta florenorum Rhen. et amissione omnium exemplarium." "With a cosmographical globe: under a fine of five hundred Rhenish florins and forfeiting all copies."

[186] Wieser. Magalhaes-Stra.s.se. See especially chap. iii, "Der Globus Schoners vom J. 1515," and reproduction, pl. II; Reproduction in Jomard, Nos. 15-16.

[187] Harrisse. B.A.V. p. xlix, note 156; also Nos. 99, 100.

[188] Stevenson. Martin Waldseemuller and the early Lusitano-Germanic Cartography.

[189] Schoner. Luculentissima. fol. 60.

[190] Schoner. Luculentissima. verso of fol. 60.

[191] Wieser, op. cit.; Ghillany. Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim. pp. 8-12. Ghillany reproduces the western hemisphere of the globe in the original colors; Kohl, J. G. History of the Discovery of Maine. (In: Doc.u.mentary history of the State of Maine. Portland, 1869.) Vol. I, pp. 158-163. This contains a much reduced reproduction of Ghillany's facsimile of the western hemisphere; Nordenskiold, op. cit., p. 80; Santarem. Atlas.

pl. 52 (H. S. A. copy); Lelewel. Geographie du moyen age.

pl. 46.

[192] The inscription reads as given by Ghillany.

[193] Practically all of the works cited relating to Schoner treat more or less fully of the geographical features of Schoner's globes. Wieser's work is particularly valuable.

[194] Stevens, op. cit., gives this letter in facsimile with translation; Wieser, op. cit., pp. 118-122, reprints the Latin of this letter.

[195] Harrisse, op. cit., pp. 519-528.

[196] Wieser, op. cit., p. 121.

[197] Oberhummer, E. Leonardo da Vinci and the art of the renaissance in its relation to geography. (In: The Geographical Journal. London, 1909. See pp. 561-569 on Albrecht Durer.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Honter Globe. _From his Rudimenta cosmographica_]

Chapter VII

Globes of the Second Quarter of the Sixteenth Century

Globes indicating (a) an Asiatic connection of the New World, (b) globes expressing a doubt of such Old World connection, (c) globes showing an independent position of the New World.-Franciscus Monachus.-Hakluyt's reference.-The Gilt globe.-Parmentier.-Francesco Libri.-Nancy globe.-Globes of Gemma Frisius.-Robertus de Bailly.-Schoner globe of 1533.-Scheipp.-Furtembach.-Paris Wooden globe.-Vopel globes.-Santa Cruz.-Hartmann gores.-Important globe of Ulpius.-Cardinal Bembo's globes.-Mercator's epoch-making activity.-Fracastro.-Ramusio's references to globes.-Gianelli.-Florence celestial globe.

As in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, so in the second we find engraved bra.s.s and copper globes, globes with ma.n.u.script maps, and those with printed or engraved gore maps. Since the latter in this period have especially found favor, attention is more and more directed toward the shaping of the segments or gores with that mathematical nicety which, as previously stated, would admit of a perfect or almost perfect adjustment when they were applied to the surface of a prepared ball.

To the independent position of the New World as represented on the globe maps prior to 1525 attention has been called in the preceding chapter, but the idea of such independence, it may here be noted, is one contrary to that very generally though erroneously entertained by historians who have written of the period, an error doubtless in large measure due to a failure on their part to give proper heed to the record of the maps as expressing the geographical notions commonly accepted. Harrisse has well stated the case in referring to the geographical opinions of the earliest explorers, observing that the moment search began for a waterway leading from Ocea.n.u.s Occidentalis to Ocea.n.u.s Orientalis, that moment opinion began to become conviction that a new continental region had been found, that a New World had been discovered,[198] and practically all of the early explorers had hope of finding such a waterway. It is very true that more than two hundred years pa.s.sed from Columbus' day before there was positive proof of an independence of the newly found land, but the earliest map makers outlined it as if believing in its independence of an Old World or Asiatic connection.[199] The so-called Bartholomew Columbus sketch maps,[200]

probably drawn in the first decade of the sixteenth century (Fig. 47), alone can be cited, among the maps of any particular importance in the first quarter of this century, as distinctly indicating a belief in an Asiatic connection. Attention was likewise called in the preceding chapter to the fact that toward the close of the century's first quarter the idea that a veritably independent new continent had been found was beginning to be doubted.[201] This doubt seemed to follow close upon the publication of the report of Magellan's expedition.[202] It indeed appears to be generally accepted that to the report of that remarkable circ.u.mnavigation, to the letters of Cortes respecting his Mexican expedition,[203] and to the failure of his and of other Spanish attempts to find a strait north of the equator through which one might pa.s.s from Ocea.n.u.s Occidentalis to Ocea.n.u.s Orientalis,[204] the changed conception of the geography of the New World was due.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 47 Bartholomew Columbus Sketch Map, 1506.]

This changed conception seems to have found first expression, on a map, in a little volume prepared by Franciscus Monachus, a friar of Mechlin, about 1525. The t.i.tle of this volume reads in part,[205] 'De orbis situ ac descriptione. ad Reuerendiss. D. archiepiscopum Panormitanum, Francisci, Monachi ordinis Franciscani, epistola sane qu luculenta ...'

'A very excellent letter from Franciscus, a monk of the Franciscan Order, to the Most Reverend Archbishop of Palermo, touching the site and description of the world,' with a colophon reading "Excudebat Martinus Caesar, expensis honesti viri Rolandi Bollaert ..." "Martinus Caesar prepared this at the expense of the upright man Roland Bollert." Its two small woodcut maps representing the world in hemispheres, respectively the Old and the New World (Fig. 48), are of striking historical interest, while the text contains many references which are of importance for the light they cast upon the geographical opinions of the time respecting the New World. Here, as noted, the New World is first represented on a map as having distinctly an Asiatic connection, the southern continent (South America) being separated from the northern only by that narrow strait which we find so prominently represented on the Maiollo map of 1527, and there called "stretto dubitoso."[206] While these hemispheres cannot themselves be referred to as a globe, they may serve to give us a general idea of the geographical representations on the globe, which, as appears probable, was at that time constructed by the author of the text. To the Ecclesiastical Prince, to whom Franciscus dedicated his little volume, information was sent concerning his globe on which he had drawn by hand a map of the world as he said, the reply to his letter containing the following statement, "Orbis glob.u.m, in quo terrae ac maria luculenter depicta sunt, una c.u.m epistola accepimus."

"We accept the globe of the world on which the land and the seas are elegantly depicted, together with the epistle."[207] Being a gift it would seem reasonable to conclude that the globe was not duplicated and offered for sale and that the example referred to was therefore probably unique. The text of the 'De orbis situ ...,' as it appears, was printed because it was thought there was much contained therein that was new and not in harmony with geographical ideas. .h.i.therto expressed. The first edition was undated, nor was the second dated, but it agreed in practically all particulars with the first excepting a slight alteration in the t.i.tle. A third edition was issued in the year 1565, and is still known in many copies, of which Gallois gives an excellent reprint in his biography of Orontius Finius.[208] It is in the first and second editions that the hemispheres appear; they are wanting in the third, but as a subst.i.tute therefor a small globe resting on a base appears on the verso of the t.i.tle-page, which in its general features may be a representation of Franciscus' globe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 48. Hemispheres of Franciscus Monachus, 1526.]

Hakluyt, in his 'Discourse on Western Planting,' alludes to "an olde excellent globe in the Queenes privie gallory at Westminster which also seemeth to be of Verarsa.n.u.s makinge, havinge the coste described in Italian, which laieth oute the very selfe same streite necke of lande in lat.i.tude of 40. degrees, with the sea joynninge harde on bothe sides, as it dothe on Panama and Nombre di Dios; which would be a matter of singule importannce, yf it shoulde be true, as it is not unlikely."[209]

To this particular globe we do not seem to be able to find any other allusion.

In the geographical department of the Bibliotheque Nationale there may be found an exceedingly well-executed globe, neither signed nor dated, but which appears to have been constructed about the year 1528.[210] It is an unmounted gilded copper sphere (Fig. 49), having a diameter of about 23 cm. Its t.i.tle reads "Nova et integra universi orbs descriptio,"

"A new and complete description of the entire world," which, with all legends and local names, is engraved in small capitals. Based upon the description we possess of the Schoner globe of 1523, and upon the close resemblance of its coast outlines to those of the Weimar globe of 1533, there is reason for a.s.signing it to the Schonerian school. It, however, is to be noted that the nomenclature of the northeast coast of North America is very different from that which appears on the last-mentioned globe, and that it more nearly resembles in that region the simple cordiform map of Orontius Finius of the year 1536.[211] The latest geographical information which it records seems to relate to the expedition of Verrazano. In the region corresponding to the present New England, we find the legend "TERRA FRANCESCA NUPER l.u.s.tRATA." The Gulf of Mexico is called "SINUS S. MICHAELIS," and the Caribbean Sea, "MARE HERBIDIUM." In South America are the conspicuous legends "AMERICA INVENTA 1497," "BRAZILIO REGIO," and "TERRA NOVA." The great Antarctic land bears the inscription "REGIO PATALIS." The Amazon appears as a river of considerable length, with numerous tributaries. The course of Magellan's voyage, so frequently laid down on the maps of the period, here finds record in the threadlike line which encircles the globe. As in the hemispheres of Franciscus, so here, America is laid down as a part of the Asiatic continent. The workmans.h.i.+p of the globe is equal to the best that one could find in the Italy, France or Germany of that day, while the few German words among the numerous Latin names, as "Baden," "Braunschweig," and "Wien," give some support for the claim that it is of German origin. A Spanish origin, as has sometimes been claimed for it, can hardly be accepted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 49. Gilt Globe, ca. 1528.]

Parmentier, a native of the famous seaport Dieppe, had in his day, as a maker of charts, a very substantial reputation. Whether one should conclude from references to him as a cartographer that he busied himself with the construction of globes cannot be definitely determined, as these references indicate that his maps were merely constructed on a projection which enabled him in some measure to represent the curved surface of the earth. Schefer, in his work 'Le discours de la navigation de Jean et Raoul Permentier,' says, "Permentier estoit bon cosmographe et geographe, et par lui ont este composez plusieurs mappes monde en globe et en plat et plusieurs cartes marines, sur les quelles plusieurs ont navigue seurement." "Parmentier was a good cosmographer and geographer, and many maps of the world both in the form of globes and as plane maps were made by him, also numerous marine charts by means of which many sailed the seas with safety."[212]

Vasari gives us information concerning one Francesco Libri, member of a famous Veronese artist family, who won distinction as a globe maker in the early sixteenth century, and who apparently was most active in this field of endeavor about the year 1530. Although all trace of the globes he is said to have constructed is lost, Vasari's reference is worthy citation.

"Among other things," says that interesting, if not always accurate, Italian biographer, "he constructed a large globe of wood, being four feet in diameter; this he then covered externally with a strong glue, so that there should be no danger of crack or other injury. Now the globe or ball thus constructed was to serve as a terrestrial globe. Wherefore when it had been carefully divided and exactly measured under the direction and in the presence of Fracastro and Baroldi, both well versed in physics and distinguished as cosmographers and astrologers, it was afterward to be painted by Francesco for a Venetian gentleman, Messer Andrea Navagero, a most learned orator and poet, who intended to make a present of the same to King Francis of France, to whom he was about to be sent as amba.s.sador from the Republic. But scarcely had Navagero arrived in France and entered on his office, when he died. The work consequently remained unfinished, which was much to be regretted since, executed by Francesco, under the guidance and with the advice and a.s.sistance of two men so distinguished as were Fracastro and Baroldi, it would doubtless have turned out a very remarkable production. It remained unfinished, however, as I have said, and what is worse, even that which had been done received considerable injury, I know not of what kind, in the absence of Francesco; yet spoiled as it was, the globe was purchased by Messer Bartolommeo Lonichi who has never been prevailed upon to give it up, although he has been frequently much entreated to do so, and offered large sums of money for it."

"Francesco had made two smaller globes before commencing the large one; and of these one is now in the possession of Mazzanti, Archdeacon of the cathedral of Verona; the other belonging to the Count Raimondo della Torre, and is now the property of his son, the Count Giovanni Battista, by whom it is very greatly valued, seeing that this also was constructed with the a.s.sistance and after measurements of Fracastro, who was a very intimate friend of Count Raimondo."[213]

As before noted, the exact date when Francesco constructed his globes is unknown. Vasari, however, informs us, as noted above, that the large one was constructed for Andrea Navagero, who wished to present it to the King of France, and that very shortly after his arrival in France on his special mission his death occurred, which we know to have been the eighth of May, 1529. It must therefore have been in that year that Francesco completed the construction of his globe. It would be interesting to know the geographical configuration of the New World as laid down by Fracastro and Francesco on this large globe, remembering that it was not long after the mission of Navagero to King Francis that the first Cartier expedition sailed for the western continent. We cannot be certain, as stated, of its geographical data, but it seems probable that it followed the Verrazanian type as represented, for example, in the Maiollo map of 1527, or in the Verrazano map of 1529.

The Lorraine Museum of Nancy possesses a fine globe, neither signed nor dated, but which usually is referred to as the Nancy globe (Figs. 50, 50a), and is thought to have been constructed about the year 1530.[214]

It is a silver ball 16 cm. in diameter, divided on the line of the equator into hemispheres, and is supported on a small statue of Atlas.

The equator, the tropics, the polar circles, the zodiac, and one meridian circle pa.s.sing through the western part of Asia in the Old World and through the peninsula of Florida in the New World, are represented. It is an object of interest not only for its scientific value in giving us a geographical record of the period, but it is also of interest for its fine workmans.h.i.+p, having its land areas gilded and its seas blue enameled, in which sea monsters and s.h.i.+ps of artistic design appear. We have the record that in the year 1662, Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine, presented it to the church of Notre Dame de Sion in his residence city, and that by this church it was long used as a pyx.[215] There is a striking resemblance of its land configurations, and of its geographical nomenclature to that of the Gilt globe, of the Wooden globe, and of the World map of Orontius Finaeus of 1531. The New World is represented as a part of the Asiatic continent, and the central section of that region, to which we may refer as North America, is designated "Asia Orientalis" and "Asia Major." To the east of these names are numerous regional names, conspicuous among which are "Terra Francesca," "Hispania Major," and "Terra Florida." The Gulf of Mexico appears as "Mare Cathayum." Mexico bears the name "Hispania Nova," while the sea to the west is named "Mare Indic.u.m Australe." The South American continent is called "America Nova," and the names are very numerous which have been given to the various sections, among which we find "Terra Firma," "Papagelli," "Terra Canibale," "Parias," and "Peru Provincia." The large austral land bears the name "Brasielie Regio,"

which name is placed southeast of Africa, and the name "Patalis Regio"

appears southwest of South America.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 50. Nancy Globe, ca. 1530.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 50a. Globe of Jacob Stamfer, 1539.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 50b. Nancy Globe in Hemispheres.]

Gemma Frisius (1508-1555), a native of Doc.u.m (Fig. 51), and for a number of years professor of medicine and mathematics in the University of Louvain,[216] issued a little book, in the year 1530, bearing the t.i.tle 'De principiis Astronomiae et Cosmographiae, deque usu globi, ab eodem editi, item de orbis divisione et insulis, rebusque nuper inventis ...