Coronelli, Vincenzo Maria. Terre Artiche. Venice: ca. 1690.

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli

Terre Artiche

Venice, 1690

19 3/4 x 28 inches sheet

 

Fine example of Vincenzo Maria Coronelli's map of the North Polar Regions, published in Venice circa 1690.

Coronelli's map provides a remarkable depiction of the Arctic Circle, North Pole, Greenland, and Baffin Bay, with parts of Canada, parts of northern Europe, Nova Zembla and areas of the northern Tartary.

The map is richly annotated with information regarding early discoverers, including Barentsz (1594-1596), Henry Hudson and other 17th century explorations. Perhaps most interesting are the annotations relating to Herico Russo (Erik the Red), who discovered Greenland in 982.

In the upper left corner is a large title cartouche, elegantly embellished with wind heads.

Vincenzo Coronelli apprenticed as a Xylographer, before joining the Convental Franciscans in 1665. In about 1678, after studying Astronomy and Euclid, Coronelli began working as a geographer and was commissioned to make a set of Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Ranuccio II Farnese, the Duke of Parma which were 5 feet in diameter. Coronelli was next invited to Rome to construct a similar pair of Globes for Louis XIV. From 1681 to 1683, Coronelli lived in Paris, where he constructed a pair of 10 foot diameter globes for the King, at a weight of nearly 4000 pounds.

The fame and importance of Coronelli's globe led to the production of a 42 inch diameter globe in 1688, for which complete of examples of which reside in a number of major institutional collections around the world. Separate globe gore sheets from this famous globe periodically appear on the market. Coronelli worked for a number of years as a Geographer and Theologian, before returning to Venice in 1705, where he published his Atlante Veneto and Corso Geographico and founded the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti.