Description
Rare large c.18th gore of the South Pole by Vincenzo Coronelli, with an elaborate cartouche and circular table of information. This gore completed the lower half of Coronelli’s massive globe which all the other Australian related gores converged onto.
Coronelli a Franciscan priest and mathematician was also one of Italy’s most famous cartographers and globe-makers, having constructed a pair of enormous hand drawn globes for Louis XIV. These were over fifteen feet in diameter (4.5m) and large enough to hold up to thirty people via a special door. These handcrafted made to order globes, were only afforded by the wealthy, Coronelli consequently printed a set of twelve gores which first appeared in his book, Libro dei Globi (Book of Globes) in 1697. These twelve printed gores were then able to be made up to a smaller more affordable 1.1m in diameter, still a very large globe.
The gore offered here is from his rare second edition of Coronelli’s major book of globes, Globi Differenti del P.Coronelli, published in 1701. In this work Coronelli used the original plates (1697). The gore is on watermarked paper consistent with paper he used in 1693-1696. Coronelli used the original plates of his 1692-1693 terrestrial globes, yet masked parts so they could fit into atlas form. For this reason this gore has visible plate marks on only three sides.
References:
Brolsma, Clancy, Manning; Mapping Antarctica p.274
NLA, Mapping our World, S.Helman, p.173-177, ill.p.177 (not in Tooley or Clancy)
Sumira, The Art & History of Globes, Item 19, pp.96-103
