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California as Island/ Southwest/ Globe Gore. CORONELLI, V. [Venice: 1697] Della California Alcuno ha credito . . . 18½ x 12 inches. Faint staining & chipping at edges of margins, else excellent condition. A scarce globe gore showing most of an insular California by the remarkably accomplished Franciscan who is considered the greatest early globemaker. The globe that could have been produced from this and the other gores of similar size would measure three and one-half feet in diameter, the largest commercially offered globe by Coronelli. Coronelli’s reputation as a master globe maker was secured by one of the most staggering feats of geographical production ever attempted. In 1683, he completed for Louis XIV a pair of globes, each measuring an astonishing 15 feet in diameter, certainly the largest such works produced to date. So large were these globes that each had a trapdoor through which their interiors could be entered so that changes could be made to the globes from the inside. They can be seen today at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. Coronelli did not publish this gore and many others so that they might be assembled into a globe by the buyer. The purpose was to make available at a more affordable price what he evidently regarded as his best work. Globes were not only extremely expensive but also very difficult and time consuming to make, thus making it impossible for Coronelli to meet the demand for them. The gores published in this way were available in two printed works. One is Coronelli’s grand compilation of the gores of all of his globes called the Libro dei Globi, published in 1697. Complete copies of this work are very rare. Gores also appeared in the second volume of one of Coronelli’s general atlases, the Isolario, also published in 1697. Vincenzo Coronelli (1650-1718) is credited with re-introducing the craft of copperplate engraving in Italy and founded the country’s first geographic society. This highly ambitious Franciscan was also for a brief period the head of the Order. Leighly 83; not in McLaughlin and Tooley.
Price: $4,500.00