Description
Impressive and important c.17th map of the East Indies showing the fabled Spice Islands by Vincenzo Coronelli, the most eminent Italian mapmaker of his day.
Coronelli used the extensive geographical information collected by the Jesuits who had a far reaching network of missions in Asia. Coronelli himself a Franciscan priest was widely recognised as one of the greatest cartographers and globemakers of the seventeenth century. He was famous for having constructed a pair of the world’s largest globes for King Louis XIV. Measuring over 4.5 metres in diameter and weighing approximately two tonnes, the globes were large enough to hold up to thirty people inside. The map has a large decorative title at lower left held by a pair of winged mermen and is dedicated to the abbot of Daniele Gradenigo, Padua. At top right is a large embellished scale of distances.
From Coronelli’s thirteen-volume atlas Atlante veneto, nel quale si contiene la descrittione geografica, storica, sacra, profana, e politica, degl’ impery, regni, provincie, e stati dell’universo..
