Globus Jagellonicus

The Globus Jagellonicus or Jagiellonian globe, dated to 1510, is by some considered to be the oldest existing globe to show the Americas.pl icon, Sławomir Leśniewski, " [http://www.polityka.pl/polityka/index.jsp?place=Lead33&news_cat_id=1143&news_id=224552&layout=18&forum_id=11058&fpage=Threads&page=text Ameryka na nowo odkryta] ", Polityka, 20 July 2007] [http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/in_mu_collegium_maius_krakow MUSEUM OF THE JAGIELLONIAN UNIVERSITY IN CRACOW] on culture.pl] It bears a striking resemblance to the Hunt-Lenox Globe, also tentatively dated to 1510 [Denis E. Cosgrove, Mappings, 1999 [http://books.google.com/books?id=sL8jjSg4NxQC&pg=PA80&dq=%22Hunt-Lenox+Globe%22&sig=nN-OR2b8skFp21dnkZ3qtyDSWcI] ] which is the second or third oldest known terrestrial globe, after the Erdapfel of Martin Behaim, made in Nuremberg in 1492, the year before the Columbus' discovery became known in March 1493, and thus without the new continents. Globes made by Martin Waldseemüller in 1507 already showed America.

The globus belonged to the medieval Cracow Academy which was in 1817 renamed to Jagiellonian University; it is featured on display at the Collegium Maius Museum. It was rediscovered in the early 1870s ["The originals of greatest interest are: the earliest engraved map of the world, 1508, the original Hunt-Lenox Globe, about 1510, supposed to be the earliest Post-Columbian globe which is extant, unless rivalled by the lately discovered Globus Jagellonicus"; Publishers Weekly, Philadelphia, 1873 [http://books.google.com/books?q=%22+discovered+Globus+Jagellonicus%22+&btnG=Search+Books] ] and described as "Globus Jagellonicus" in 1900 by Prof. Tadeusz Estreicher in the "Transactions of the Cracow Academy of Sciences" for that year. [Tadeusz Estreicher, "Globus Biblioteki Jagiellońskiej z początku wieku XVI, w Krakowie," Nakładem Akademii Umięjetności, 1900, 18 pp; a resumé, "Ein Erdglobus aus dem Anfange des XVI. Jahrhunderts in der Jagellonischen Bibliothek", was published in the "Bulletin international de l'Académie des Sciences de Cracovie/ Anzeiger der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Krakau," No.2, February 1900, pp.96-105. Estreicher prepared a manuscript English translation in March 1900: A globe of the beginning of the 16th century in the Jagellon Library, Extract from the Official Report of the Cracow Academy of Sciences, Globus Biblioteki Jagiellonskiej z początku w. XVI, No.12, January 1900, National Library of Australia MS 760/12/199. Edward Henry Lewinski Corwin, The Political History of Poland, 1917, [http://books.google.com/books?id=Ec4eAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Globus+Jagellonicus%22&dq=%22Globus+Jagellonicus%22&pgis=1] ] [Protestant Reformation and the Golden Age in Poland, [http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~koby/political/chapter_08/08reformation.html#The%20Cultural%20Effects%20of%20the%20Reformation] ] At the time, when no Polish state existed for about a century, Prof. Estreicher points out that this globe indicating recent geographical discoveries, possessed by the Cracow Academy since 1510, throws special light on the interest taken by Polish scholars of that time.

The gilded copper globe is considered the earliest existing globe to indicate any part of the New World and the first to delineate the South American continent. It is also the oldest globe on which the continent of America is shown to be distinct from that of Asia. It does not yet make use of the name "America" though, which had been introduced in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller [The name America was not universally accepted. Waldseemueller removed it from his map called Universalis Cosmographia often substituting "terra incognita" (unknown land) for both continents. But printers reinserted it after his death. [http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-24-america-turns-500_N.htm?csp=34] ] in his Universalis Cosmographia.

Notes

See also

* Johannes Schöner globe
* Collegium Maius
* Collegium Novum
* Culture of Kraków