Freiburger historische Bestände - digital

THE GLOBE.

XVII. THE HISTORY OF THE GLOBE.

Contemporary Globes.

Martin Behaim's stay at Nuremberg in 1490-9j^ is
memorable for the production of a globe with which his
name is identified, and which has secured for him a place
in the history of geography. Globes in his age, and even
earlier, were by no means unknown. Giovanni Campano,
a distinguished mathematician of Novara, who flourished
in the time of Pope Urban IV. (1261-64), wrote a
' Tractatus de Sphera solida,' in which he describes the
manufacture of globes of wood or metal.1 Toscanelli,
when writing his famous letter in 1474, refers to a globe
as being best adapted for demonstrating the erroneous
hypothesis as to the small distance which he supposed
to separate the west of Europe from Eastern Asia.
Columbus, too, had a globe on board his vessel upon

two globes of a date anterior to the discovery of the
New World remain to us, namely, that still preserved at
Nuremberg, and a smaller one at the Depot des planches
et cartes de la marine, Paris.

The latter, known as the " Laon Globe" because
M. Leon Leroux picked it up, in 1860, in a curiosity
shop of that town, has been described by M. d'Avezac
(' Bull, de la Soc. de Geographie,' XX., 1860). It is of
copper gilt. Its diameter is 170 mm., and it seems
originally to have formed part of an astronomical clockwork
. The design of this globe dates back to a period
even anterior to the age of Prince Henry the Navigator,
but as the names " S. Thomas" and " Mons Niger"
[Cao's "furthest" in 1485], and the legend " Hucusq:
Portugalen : navigio : pervenere : 1493 " are to be read
upon it, it has been supposed that this globe, notwithstanding
its antiquated geographical features, is in reality
no older than the year named. I am not prepared to

THE

LAON GLOBE
14.. sCw

which was depicted Cipangu,2 and which may have been
the work of his brother Bartholomew, who, according to
Las Casas, produced charts as well as globes. But only

1 Fiorini,' Sferi fcerrestri e celesti di autore Italiani' (Rome, 1899), p. 40.
M. Fiorini was born at Felizzaro in 1827 and died 1901 at Bologna,
where he was Professor of Geography.

s Journal, September 24, 1492.

accept this explanation ; I am rather inclined to think
that the above legend was added long after the completion
of the globe, this being a cheap and ready means of
bringing it up to date, a proceeding by no means
unknown an\ong modern map publishers. But however
this may be, this " Laon Globe " is too small to enter into
competition with the fine globe produced at Nuremberg
in 1492.