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Mr. Philip D. Burden
P.O. Box 863,
Chalfont St. Giles, Bucks HP6 9HD,
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44 (0) 1494 76 33 13
Email: enquiries@caburden.com
A SUPERB DECORATIVE EXAMPLE OF JEAN BAPTISTE NOLIN’S CELESTIAL GLOBE GORES. Originals of these gores were not intended for circulation at all, purely for the construction of globes and as such their survival is of great rarity. Father Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718) always claimed that his 110 centimetres were the finest ever printed. They were reduced versions of the great 390 centimetre manuscript globes made for King Louis XIV and presented to him in 1683. Coronelli had already made 175 centimetre manuscript globes for the Duke Ranuccio Farnèse. Soon after they were seen by Cardinal Cesar d’Estrees, Ambassador Extraordinary to Louis XIV at the Court of Rome. He commissioned Coronelli to make a larger pair for the King of France. Coronelli moved to Paris for two years from 1681 and had at his disposal the finest craftsmen and all of the latest cartographic information. “The globes were a remarkable feat of engineering. Each could sustain the weight of thirty men: doors were concealed in their surface to give access to the interior. They became one of the show pieces of Europe” (Wallis & Pelletier). In 1703 they were installed in the Chateau de Marly in the two specially altered pavilions. They were fully restored again in the 1980s.
There were requests for Coronelli to make a further similar sized pair but Coronelli appears never to have done so. He decided instead to issue a reduced size printed version of 110 centimetres which would include all of the information. The terrestrial gores were first published in Venice in 1688. The Société Gallica decided to honour Coronelli by reproducing the celestial manuscript to act as a pair to the Venice terrestrial. It was designed as a convex globe by the painter Arnold Deuvez of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and was engraved by the chalcographer Jean-Baptiste Nolin. Although published in Paris, the captions are in Italian. The constellation names, reproduced with extreme accuracy, are in Italian, French, Latin, and Greek. The work was finished by 1693.
This 1693 Paris edition is arguably the finest of the printed versions of the celestial globe bearing more names and figures. The constellations are depicted with magnificent engravings of mythical beasts, figures and objects and labelled in either Italian, French, Latin, Arabic or Greek, some outlining the details of the major stars therein. A key details seven different magnitudes of brightness, the sun, moon and five known planets are also identified. A neighbouring cartouche details the period depicted in the sky, the year 1700. This updated those on the manuscript globes where the date was set at 5 September 1638, the birth of Louis XIV. Nolin (1657-1708) was a geographer, engraver and publisher on the Rue St. Jacques in Paris. From these plates proofs were drawn before any description of the constellations were engraved, and probably before any numbering of the stars (unconfirmed). Upon Coronelli’s return to Venice in February 1688 he presented in 1689 these first globes to the Collegio, and are possibly those now in the Marciana Library.
Some years after Coronelli decided to have new plates for a celestial concave 110 centimetre globe engraved at Venice. The work is virtually identical to the Paris version; the differences were described in Coronelli’s ‘Epitome’ published in 1693. The most striking is that across the constellations were placed a series of so-called ‘procession’ arrows. This issue is found in the ‘Libro dei Globi’, 1697 (from private correspondence with Rudolf Schmidt of the Internationale Coronelli Gesellschaaft fur Globen und Instrumentenkunde, Vienna). This example is the high quality reproduction made in the 1960’s in Paris from the original plates at the chalcography collection of the Louvre Museum using fine Moulin de Guy paper. Armao (1944) pp. 130-4; Bonelli, Maria L. ‘Catalogo dei Globi … i globe di Vincenzo Coronelli’, Florence, 1960; Wallis ‘Introduction to the Facsimile of the Coronelli: ‘Libro dei Globi. Venice 1693, 1701’, pp. v-xxii; Pastoureau (1984) p. 357; Schmidt, Rudolf ‘Zur Arbeitsweise Vincenzo Coronellis’, in Der Globusfreund, Vienna, 1995; Wallis, Helen & Pelletier, Monique (1980) ‘The Resurrection of Coronelli’s Great Globes’, in ‘The Map Collector’, December 1980.
There were requests for Coronelli to make a further similar sized pair but Coronelli appears never to have done so. He decided instead to issue a reduced size printed version of 110 centimetres which would include all of the information. The terrestrial gores were first published in Venice in 1688. The Société Gallica decided to honour Coronelli by reproducing the celestial manuscript to act as a pair to the Venice terrestrial. It was designed as a convex globe by the painter Arnold Deuvez of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, and was engraved by the chalcographer Jean-Baptiste Nolin. Although published in Paris, the captions are in Italian. The constellation names, reproduced with extreme accuracy, are in Italian, French, Latin, and Greek. The work was finished by 1693.
This 1693 Paris edition is arguably the finest of the printed versions of the celestial globe bearing more names and figures. The constellations are depicted with magnificent engravings of mythical beasts, figures and objects and labelled in either Italian, French, Latin, Arabic or Greek, some outlining the details of the major stars therein. A key details seven different magnitudes of brightness, the sun, moon and five known planets are also identified. A neighbouring cartouche details the period depicted in the sky, the year 1700. This updated those on the manuscript globes where the date was set at 5 September 1638, the birth of Louis XIV. Nolin (1657-1708) was a geographer, engraver and publisher on the Rue St. Jacques in Paris. From these plates proofs were drawn before any description of the constellations were engraved, and probably before any numbering of the stars (unconfirmed). Upon Coronelli’s return to Venice in February 1688 he presented in 1689 these first globes to the Collegio, and are possibly those now in the Marciana Library.
Some years after Coronelli decided to have new plates for a celestial concave 110 centimetre globe engraved at Venice. The work is virtually identical to the Paris version; the differences were described in Coronelli’s ‘Epitome’ published in 1693. The most striking is that across the constellations were placed a series of so-called ‘procession’ arrows. This issue is found in the ‘Libro dei Globi’, 1697 (from private correspondence with Rudolf Schmidt of the Internationale Coronelli Gesellschaaft fur Globen und Instrumentenkunde, Vienna). This example is the high quality reproduction made in the 1960’s in Paris from the original plates at the chalcography collection of the Louvre Museum using fine Moulin de Guy paper. Armao (1944) pp. 130-4; Bonelli, Maria L. ‘Catalogo dei Globi … i globe di Vincenzo Coronelli’, Florence, 1960; Wallis ‘Introduction to the Facsimile of the Coronelli: ‘Libro dei Globi. Venice 1693, 1701’, pp. v-xxii; Pastoureau (1984) p. 357; Schmidt, Rudolf ‘Zur Arbeitsweise Vincenzo Coronellis’, in Der Globusfreund, Vienna, 1995; Wallis, Helen & Pelletier, Monique (1980) ‘The Resurrection of Coronelli’s Great Globes’, in ‘The Map Collector’, December 1980.
NOLIN, Jean Baptiste – CORONELLI, Vincenzo Maria
Orbis Coelestis Typus Opus a P. Coronelli Min. Convent. Serenissimaeque Reipub. Venetae Cosmographo Inchoatum Societatis. Gallicae Sumptibus absolutum Lutetiae Parisiorum. Anno R. S. MDCXCIII. Delin. Arnoldus Deuvez Regiae Acad. Pictor Sculp. I. B. Nolin Reg. Chr. Calcographus
Paris, c.1965
Twenty-four full length gores each 630 mm. high by 275 (max) and 90 (min) mm., the whole makes a 110 cms. globe with a final circumference of 340 cms., the largest ever printed. If laid in two dimensions they measure in total 1300 x 3360 mm. The whole in superb professional modern wash colour complete with extensive gilt work to all stars and some decorative features drawn from an extant original coloured globe.
Stock number: 6277
SOLD