A PAIR OF ITALIAN GLOBES
VICENZO MARIA CORONELLI (1650-1718), CIRCA 1696
Each 47cm diameter globe made up of two sets of twelve half gores and two polar calottes, hand-coloured and varnished, mounted in meridian rings on wooden stands.
The terrestrial globe with dedicatory cartouche to William III dated 1696, the equator, polar circles and the tropics all graduated, the ecliptic also graduated, showing California as an island, Korea as a peninsula, and the coasts of "Nuova Hollanda" and "Nuova Zelandia". Decorated with hunting and whaling scenes, and various styles of ship, the globe includes explorers' tracks and notes the dates of discoveries in Australia, the Cape of Good Hope and elsewhere, adding a large cartouche on Magellan's voyage.
The celestial globe with the equator, the arctic circles, and the tropics all graduated, the ecliptic also graduated, showing the 48 Ptolemaic constellations and the non-Ptolemaic constellations, including the twelve southern constellatios of Plancius, the names recorded in Latin, Greek and Italian. In Aquarius, there is a reference to the stars observed by Hevelius with a telescope ("Telescpiae Hevelij"), and there are numerous notes on comets.
each 72 x 68 x 68cm.

Provenance:
Frits Philips Collection, 5 December 2006, Sotheby's Amsterdam lot 494.

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