Volume I Part 7 (1/2)
Chapter VI
Globes of the Early Sixteenth Century
Summary of fifteenth century globe characteristics.-Increasing interest in globes.-Globes of Pope Julius II.-Friar Marco da Benevento.-Importance of the Rosselli family of Florence.-The globe of Barnaba Canti.-Friar Giuliano Vannelli.-Interest of Trithemius in globes.-The Bunau globe.-Waldseemuller's map and globe.-Liechtenstein globes.-Buchlin reference.-Globus Mundi.-Welt Kugel.-Lenox globe.-Jagellonicus globe.-Hauslab.-Green globe of Paris.-Nordenskiold gores.-So-called Leonardo da Vinci gores.-Boulengier gores.-Acton globes.-Globes of Magellan and of del Cano.-Globes of Schoner.
Terrestrial globes of the early years of great geographical discoveries, that is, of the fifteenth century, to which reference was made in the preceding chapter, appear to have been constructed either of metal, on the surface of which the map was engraved, of which the Laon globe is an example; of a composition fas.h.i.+oned into a ball over a mould on which strips of parchment or paper were then pasted, having the map drawn by hand, as the Behaim globe; or the ball was of wood with map in ma.n.u.script, as was probably the globe attributed to John Cabot. Here were beginnings, and the following century witnessed a remarkable increase of interest in globe construction. As the true position of places on the earth's surface, as well as the distance between any two places, could best be represented on a globe, cartographers and globe makers became active in their endeavors to meet the desires of those interested in geography. They no longer confined themselves to such globes as the Behaim and the Laon, which, in reality, are artistically interesting rather than scientifically useful, but they sought to make use of the new invention of printing. Maps giving the outlines of continents, with place names, rivers, constellations, and star names were printed from wood blocks or from copper engraved plates on paper gores, which were so fas.h.i.+oned mathematically that they could be made to fit the surface of a prepared ball, with careful adjustment and manipulation. In this manner globes in great numbers could be prepared, with the added advantage that they were all alike, or similar. The sixteenth century soon furnished rules for globe-gore construction, and while the methods of globe making hitherto common were not entirely given over, as many artistic pieces of the period, which have come down to us, testify, the new method was soon in general favor and became in the course of time practically the only method employed. It is the globe maker's method today.
If the actual number of globes constructed shortly before and shortly after 1500 appears to have been small, judging from the number extant, we often find additional a.s.surance of interest in such instruments in the use that was made of them for ill.u.s.trative purposes, and for decoration. Terrestrial and celestial globes, as well as armillary spheres, frequently appeared on t.i.tle-pages (Figs. 26, 27), in paintings (Fig. 28), or const.i.tuted a part of library furnis.h.i.+ngs (Fig.
29).[124]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 26. t.i.tle-page of Johann Schoner's Terrae Descriptio, 1518.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 27. Second t.i.tle-page of Mauro Fiorentino's Sphera Volgare, 1537.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 28. Holbein's Amba.s.sadors, ca. 1536.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 29. Library of Escorial.]
Among the ducal houses, famous in Italy in this period for interest in matters geographical, none was more conspicuous than was the house of Este of Ferrara.[125] We have an interesting letter dated Rome, January 17, 1509, and written by Fioramonte Brognoli to Isabel of Este, wife of Francis II, Marquis of Mantua, daughter of Hercules I, Duke of Ferrara, who was responsible for the draughting of the Cantino map of the year 1502,[126] and granddaughter of Duke Borso, to whom Donnus Nicholas Germa.n.u.s dedicated or addressed, in 1466, his twenty-seven Ptolemy maps.[127] Brognoli, having received from the Marchioness an order for a copy of the globes, terrestrial and celestial, possessed by Pope Julius II, made reply that ”the map and celestial signs which are painted on two solid spheres in the library of the Pope, of which your Excellency would like to have copies, I have ordered, and the same to be made by a good painter of the Palace, who tells me that it will take some time because the matter is quite difficult. I will not fail in care, and will provide the necessary funds, so that as soon as possible I will send them to you by a trusty messenger.”[128] Again the Roman correspondent wrote, the letter bearing date February 1, 1505, ”That master painter who would like to make copies of the map and the zodiac which are in the library of the Pope, about which Your Excellency wrote me some time ago, tells me that to make them with linen it will cost more than forty ducats, but to draw them on paper according to a certain design which is painted on canvas in that place, it would cost very little. I thought I would inform Your Excellency before giving the order, that I might ascertain your wishes, for I shall do exactly that which you desire.”[129] February 20, 1505, the Marchioness replied from Mantua, saying that ”the expense of forty ducats will not deter us, if the copy of the map and of the zodiac is well made and is similar to that found in the library of the Pope. You may order it to be made with extreme diligence and with exactness.”[130]
The globe of Pope Julius II, in question, must then have been constructed prior to 1505, seeing this to be the year of the correspondence to which reference has been made above. From the partial description given in the letters we are led to the conclusion that they were not engraved metal globes, but their maps were ma.n.u.script, and were well decorated by hand. The Vatican Museum is still in possession of a celestial globe which may well be one of those once belonging to Pope Julius II, the terrestrial globe having disappeared.
From the interesting description of Denza[131] we learn that this remaining one is a hollow wooden ball, 95 cm. in diameter. That there might be an even surface on which to draw the star map, a covering of plaster had been provided, 4 mm. in thickness. It is furnished with a somewhat elaborate base, ornamented with sphinxes with the heads of eagles and the feet of lions. Its horizon circle, supported by four quarter circles, is a band 5 cm. wide, the surface of which is divided into five concentric circles, within which are the names of the several signs of the zodiac in Latin, the names of the days of the month, and the names of the eight princ.i.p.al winds in the Italian language. Along the outer edge of this horizon circle is the following inscription, ”Daniel Cha.s.signet. Fecit. Romae 1617,” a name and date clearly applying only to this circle or to the globe's mounting. It has a meridian circle within which the sphere revolves. On the surface of the ball we find represented the princ.i.p.al circles, that is, the equator, the tropics, the polar circles, with five meridians, and the ecliptic, its twelve signs being represented in gilded characters. The coat of arms, painted near the south pole, is not that of Pope Julius II, but of Cardinal Gian Stefano Ferrero, Bishop of Bologna, who became a supporter of Juliani della Rovere in his candidacy for the papal office, and to which office he was elected, becoming known as Julius II. Fiorini thinks it probable that the globe was presented by Cardinal Ferrero to the Pope, and that while in his possession the coat of arms was painted on its surface. It is indeed not improbable that it was originally constructed for the Cardinal. Contrary to the opinion of Denza, Fiorini's conclusion is that the decoration of the globe is not to be attributed to Giulio Romano, a distinguished pupil of Raphael, and the arguments presented seem acceptable.[132]
As proof of an existing interest in globes, in Italy, in the first years of the sixteenth century, other than that given by the letters of Isabel of Este, and the globes of Pope Julius, we find an allusion to the subject by Friar Marco da Benevento, member of the order of Celestini and a renowned mathematician. In his 'Orbis nova descriptio,'[133] which he added to an edition of Ptolemy, issued in Rome in the year 1507 or 1508, he alludes to the difficulty of representing the earth upon a solid sphere, adding that the greater the size of the same the greater the difficulty there is in moving it, and that the larger the globe the more difficult it is to take in at a glance any considerable part of the map. While making no specific mention of any of the globe makers of the time, his reference to the subject seems to a.s.sure us that globes were objects more or less familiar to students of geography in his day.
Fiorini cites at some length an inventory relating to the printing establishment of Alexander Rosselli of Florence, under whose father, Francesco, this establishment became famous.[134] The father died in the year 1510, but it is probable that this artist, painter, and miniaturist, who issued for his establishment numerous maps, printed, likewise, globe gores. While the inventory gives us intimation of his great activity, we have no further knowledge of his work as a globe maker than is contained therein. It may well have been that the construction of globes with printed gore maps had its origin in Florence in the very early sixteenth century, and that a credit we have been accustomed to give to German map makers[135] is in reality due the Rosselli family of Italy, particularly Francesco Rosselli.
Fiorini likewise alludes to a letter written by Friar Zen.o.bio Acciaioli, dated Lucca, May 12, 1509, and addressed to the Florentine, Luigi Pietro Guicciardini, brother of the distinguished historian.[136] Request is made in this letter that a.s.sistance and advice be given to a brother monk, Barnaba Canti, who had been asked to describe a map on which the newly discovered lands were well drawn, there being written on the map the history of the islands, with a description of the lands and of the customs of the peoples. Attention is likewise called to a globe which Canti possessed, it being designated as ”sphaerula” or small. The letter further notes, ”Cupit autem illam Joannes teutonicus astrologus, ut ex suis ad me literis quas inclusas tibi in his mitto, videre poteris.”
”John the German astronomer desires this (map?) as you will be able to see from his letters to me which enclosed I send to you.”
It is ingeniously argued that the Joannes referred to was none other than John Schoner, who later became famous as mathematician and as map and globe maker, and that the globe referred to by Acciaioli was one in the construction of which the globe gores of Rosselli had been used, since ”Joannes teutonicus” in all probability would not have thought of receiving from Italy a ma.n.u.script globe.
For the history of globe making as practiced in Florence in these early years, there is in the record of the deliberations of the Florentine Signoria, dated December 30, 1515, an entry of interest.[137] The Priors and Gonfaloniers directed attention to the sphere, which had been placed in the orologia or clock room, noting that the terrestrial orb which had been painted thereon was greatly damaged, ”... super qua depicta est figura et situs...o...b..s terrarum ... devastata et male picta.” They expressed a desire that it should be fully repaired and be made suitable as an adornment of the wonderful clock, and in keeping with the remarkable celestial sphere which was placed near by: ”ut similis sit et non discrepet, in sua qualitate, a mirabili orologio predicto, et a convicina et mirabili palla, ubi apparet figura et ambitus celi.” Having knowledge of the ability and skill of Friar Giuliano Vannelli, it was decided to entrust the reconstruction to him. We learn that on June 28, 1516, the Signoria directed payment of fifty large florins be made to Friar Giuliano, in addition to the six already paid, for the painted sphere; that on July 17, 1516, the officers of the Monte Comune directed the payment of fifty-six large gold florins to ”Don Giuliani Vanegli”
”in appreciation of his work, and as a reward for having made one of the two b.a.l.l.s of the clock, which is in the large room of the Signoria, which ball he both designed and painted, showing on it the entire universe, according to Ptolemy and other authors who deal with the subject.” Fiorini notes that as at this time the terrestrial sphere was damaged it probably was several years old, and that if badly painted (male picta) the inference is, it failed to record the latest discoveries. If the exact date of the construction of the spheres which adorn this clock cannot be ascertained, it was at least before 1500.[138]
We have further evidence of Vannelli's interest in globe construction contained in a letter dated Rome, November, 1524, and addressed to Cardinal Giovanni Salviati, a legate of Lombardy. ”Your Excellency has asked me to make for you a small ball _de situ orbis_, of the size and character of that of Giovanni Ruccellai.... I have made the said ball, and have varnished it, but the weather being bad it will not be dry for eight or ten days.... Your Excellency also tells me that you would like to have a large globe similar to that of Mons. R. Rodulphis, which I have begun. If you desire that I should go on with the work, I shall willingly do so, putting aside all other work to serve you.”[139]
To the interest in globe making north of the Alps in the first quarter of the sixteenth century attention may next be directed. In a letter written by Johannes Trithemius to Vuilhelmus Veldicus Monapius, dated August 12, 1507, may be found an early allusion to globes. He says: ”Orbem terrae marisqui et insularum quem pulchre depictum in Vuormotia scribis esse venalem, me quidem consequi posse obtarum, sed quadraginta pro illo expendere florenos, nemo mihi facile persuadet.
Comparavi autem mihi, ante paucos dies, pro aere modico sphaeram orbis pulchram in quant.i.tate parva ...” ”I wanted to buy a finely painted globe of the earth, seas, and islands, which I wrote was for sale in Worms, but I could hardly be induced to give such a price for it as forty florins. I purchased, however, a few days since at a low price, a beautiful terrestrial globe of small size.”[140] He wrote further, ”Henric.u.m de Bunau dies vita audini defunctum, sed libros eius et glob.u.m cosmographiae quem alim comparavit ex officina tua remanisse apud Saxoniae Principes, quod tu existimas non audini.” ”I am informed that Henry Bunau died some time ago, but I never heard it said that his books and the cosmographical globe which he bought in your workshop remained with the Princes of Saxony, as you believe.”[141] It has been thought by some that the globe referred to as having been purchased in Worms was the globe of Waldseemuller.
Since the discovery in 1902 of the long-lost Waldseemuller maps of 1507 and of 1516 by Professor Joseph Fischer, S.J., in the library of Prince de Waldburg-Wolfegg (Fig. 30), great interest has centered especially in the work of that early German map maker. As the new transatlantic discoveries of the Spanish and the Portuguese greatly quickened interest in geographical science and made necessary the construction of new maps in rapid succession, Germany, already a land in which the renaissance spirit had found an enthusiastic reception, and whose people were awake to every new interest, soon became a center for the spread of information concerning the new regions. Commercially important trade cities of this country had been for some time in intimate touch with the important maritime trade centers of Spain and Portugal. Word of the newest discoveries was quickly carried over the Alps to France and to Germany, and the latest publication of the writer on matters geographical had its references to the parts of the world newly found of which Ptolemy had not known.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 30. Castle of Prince Waldburg de Wolfegg.]
One of the first German geographers of the century, and now justly famed as one of the most distinguished of the period, was Martin Waldseemuller (ca. 1470-1522 ca.), whose name, according to the practice of the time, was cla.s.sicized as Hylacomylus.[142] So significant was the influence of Waldseemuller in the mapping of the New World that a somewhat detailed word concerning him may here well be given. When Duke Rene of Lorraine (1451-1508) became a patron of learning, with particular interest in cosmography or geography, the cartographical studies of the Germans began to have a place of far-reaching importance. It was under this enlightened duke that the little town of St. Die became a center of culture. Here was organized the Vosgian Gymnasium,[143] a society of learned men not unlike the Platonic Academy of Florence or the Danubian Society, Vienna. Of this St. Die coterie none was more prominent than Jean Ba.s.sin de Sandacourt,[144] the translator of the 'Four Voyages' of Amerigo Vespucci from the French into the Latin, Lud, the ducal secretary and author of an important little work of but few pages, which he called 'Speculi orbis succinciss ...,'[145] and Waldseemuller, the professor of cosmography, the author of the 'Cosmographiae Introductio ...,'[146] and a cartographer of great skill, who, with Ringmann, planned and carried well on toward completion, as early as 1507 or 1508, an edition of Ptolemy, which in 1513 was printed in the city of Stra.s.sburg.[147] It probably was as early as 1505 that the plan was under consideration for a new translation of Ptolemy from the Greek into the Latin, and that thought perhaps had its inspiration in the letters of Vespucci, in which he gave an account of his four voyages, and in the new chart which but recently had fallen into the hands of Ringmann.
These charts, says Lud, in his 'Speculum,' came from Portugal, which, if true, leads one to the belief that they exhibited genuine Vespucian data.[148] Whatever the truth concerning the origin of these charts, that determination became a starting point for a most important evolution in cartographical history of the world.[149] In April, 1507, Waldseemuller had written to his friend, Amerbach, in Basel, ”Non credo te latere nos Ptholomei cosmographiam, recognitio et adiectis quibusdam novis tabulis impressuros in oppido Divi Deodati.... Solidum quod ad generale Ptholomei paravimus nondum impressum est, erit autem impressum infra mensis s.p.a.cium.”[150] ”I think you know already that I am on the point of printing in the town of St. Die (Lorraine), the Cosmography of Ptolemy, after having added to the same some new maps.... the globe comprising Ptolemy in general, which we have prepared, is not yet printed, but will be so in a month.” While great interest centers in these ”new maps,” prepared for the proposed edition of Ptolemy, a greater interest now centers in the map to which Waldseemuller repeatedly alludes in the years 1507-1511, especially in his 'Cosmographiae Introductio' (Fig. 31), which map it was the good fortune of Professor Joseph Fischer, S. J., to bring to light in the year 1902, as noted above.[151] In the dedication of his little book to the Emperor Maximilian, he says, ”Hinc factu est vt me libros Ptholomei ad exeplar Grecu quorunda ope p virili recognoscete & quatuor Americi Vespucii navigationu l.u.s.tratioes adiiciete: totius...o...b..s typu ta in solido q?plano (velut preuiam quanda ysagogen) p comuno studiosoru vtilitate parauerim.”[152] ”Therefore studying to the best of my ability and with the aid of several persons, the Books of Ptolemy from a Greek copy, and adding the Relations of the Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, I have prepared for the general use of scholars a map of the whole world, like an introduction, so to speak, both in the solid and on a plane.”
Waldseemuller says further, wherein he gives a description of his new map, ”Propositum est hoc libello quandam Cosmographie introductione scribere; quam nos tam in solido q? plano depinximus. In solido quidem s.p.a.cio exclusi strictissime. Sed latius in plano....”[153] ”The purpose of this little book is to write a description of the world map, which we have designed, both as a globe and as a projection. The globe I have designed on a small scale, the map on a larger.”