Vincenzo Coronelli

Vincenzo Coronelli (August 16, 1650 - December 9, 1718) was a Franciscan monk, an Italian cosmographer, cartographer, publisher, and encyclopedist known in particular for his atlases and globes.

Biography

Vincenzo Coronelli was born, probably in Venice, August 15, 1650, the fifth child of a Venetian tailor named Maffio Coronelli. At ten, young Vincenzo was sent to the city of Ravenna and was apprenticed to a xylographer. In 1663 he was accepted into the Conventual Franciscans, becoming a novice in 1665. At age sixteen he published the first of his one hundred forty separate works. In 1671 he entered the Convent of Saint Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice, and in 1672 Coronelli was sent by the order to the College of Saint Bonaventura and Saints Apostoli in Rome where he earned his doctor’s degree in theology in 1674. He excelled in the study of both astronomy and Euclid. A little before 1678, Coronelli began working as a geographer and was commissioned to make a set of terrestrial and celestial globes for Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma. Each finely crafted globe was five feet in diameter (c. 175cm) and so impressed the Duke that he made Coronelli his theologian. [“Le Hall des Globes: Exposition permanente des Globes de Coronelli à la BnF,” press release, (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2006), 6-7.] [cite book |title= Libro dei Globi|last= Coronelli|first= Vincenzo |authorlink= |coauthors= |year= 1693|publisher= |location= Venice |isbn= |pages= v] [James Lawrence Fuchs, “Vincenzo Coronelli and the Organization of Knowledge: The Twilight of Seventeenth-Century Encyclopedism” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1983), 4-7.] [Ermano Armao, Vincenzo Coronelli, Cenni Sull’uomo e la Sua Vita (Firenze: Bibliopolis, 1944), 1-16ff.]

Globes for Louis XIV

Cardinal César d'Estrées, friend and adviser to Louis XIV and ambassador to Rome, saw the Duke of Parma’s globes and invited Coronelli to Paris in 1681 to construct a pair of globes for the Most Christian King. Coronelli moved to the French capital in 1681, where he lived for two years. Each globe was composed of spindles of bent timber about ten feet long and four inches broad at the equator. This wood was then coated with a layer of plaster about an inch thick and covered in a layer of strong unfinished fabric. This was then wrapped in a quarter-inch layer of two very fine fabrics which provided backing for the painted information of the globes. [Monique Pelletier, “Les Globes de Louis XIV: les Sources françaises de l’oeuvre de Coronelli,” Imago Mundi 34 (1982): 78.] These globes, measuring 384cm in diameter [The diameter is of 487 cm with meridians and horizon circles.] and weighting approximately 2 tons, are displayed in the Bibliothèque nationale François Mitterrand in Paris.

Later life

Due to his renown he worked in various European countries in the following years, permanently returning to Venice in 1705. In Venice he started his own cosmographical project and published the volumes of "Atlante Veneto". In his home city he founded the very first geographical society, the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti. He also held the position of Cosmographer of the Republic of Venice. Later six volumes of the "Biblioteca Universale Sacro-Profana" were published by Coronelli. This was a kind of encyclopedia, its compiled entries were ordered alphabetically.

Coronelli died at the age of 68 in Venice, having created hundreds of maps in his lifetime. Original globes by Coronelli are today located in several collections. Pairs of his most famous large (c. 110 cm diameter) globes are e.g. in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, in the National Library of Austria and in the Globe Museum in Vienna, in the library of Stift Melk, as well as in Trier, Prague, Paris, London, Washington D.C.. Having been restored and completed, another 1688 terrestrial globe is displayed at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

The International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes, founded 1952 in Vienna, is named in Coronelli's honor.

Partial bibliography

* "Morea, Negroponte & Adiacenze" (1686).
* "Atlante Veneto" (1691 - 1696).
* "Ritratti de celebri Personaggi" (1697).
* "Lo Specchio del Mare" (1698).
* "Singolarità di Venezia" (1708-1709).
* "Roma antico-moderna" (1716).

References

External links

* [http://expositions.bnf.fr/globes/index.htm Les globes du Roi Soleil, exposition de la BNF]
* [http://www.bnf.fr/pages/zNavigat/frame/cultpubl.htm?ancre=exposition_599.htm Hall des Globes] (bibliothèque nationale de France)
* [http://geoweb.venezia.sbn.it/geoweb/HSL/Coronelli/Coronelliana.html List of the works of Vincenzo Coronelli (1650-1718) at the Marciana National Library, Venice]
* [http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/greece/koroni/maps/coronelli_1686_koroni.html Picture of one of Coronelli's maps of the Kodon fortress, Greece] , excellent quality
* [http://lazarus.elte.hu/%7Ezoltorok/Cartartweb/cartart_maps.htm Original technology 42 " diam. Coronelli globe]
* [http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/greavesandthomas/facsimile/globe_coronellis.html Pictures of facsimiles of Coronelli's 1688 & 1693 terrestrial and celestial globes]