A collector from Austria has found what experts say is the oldest globe to show the Americas.
The ostrich egg globe was made in 1504. Scientists say the engraver was influenced by or worked in the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci. Image credit: Washington Map Society.
The 509-year-old globe – about the size of a grapefruit – was made from the lower halves of two ostrich eggs. It was purchased in 2012 at the London Map Fair from a dealer who said it had been in an important European collection for many decades.
The globe contains ships of different types, monsters, intertwining waves, a shipwrecked sailor, 71 place names, and one phrase in Latin – ‘HIC SVNT DRACONES’ (here are the dragons).
Only seven of the names are in the Western Hemisphere. No names are shown for North America, which is represented as a group of scattered islands; three names are shown in South America – ‘Mundus Novus’ (New World), ‘Terra de Brazil,’ and ‘Terra Sanctae Crucis’ (Land of the Holy Cross).
For many countries and territories in the world including Japan, Brazil and Arabia this is the oldest known engraved depiction on a globe.
“When I heard of this globe, I was initially skeptical about its date, origin, geography and provenance, but I had to find out for myself,” explained Dr Stefaan Missinne, an independent research scholar from Belgium and the author of a paper describing the find in the journal Portolan.
“After all no one had known of it, and discoveries of this type are extremely rare. I was excited to look into it further, and the more I did so, and the more research that we did, the clearer it became that we had a major find.”
Until now, it was thought that the oldest globe to show the New World was the Lenox Globe at the New York Public Library, but Dr Missinne presents evidence that the ostrich egg globe was actually used to cast the copper Lenox globe, putting its date – 1504.
The globe reflects the knowledge gleaned by Christopher Columbus and other very early European explorers including Amerigo Vespucci after whom America was named.
Dr Missinne points to Florence Italy as where the globe was made, and offers evidence that the engraver was influenced by or worked in the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci.
______
Bibliographic information: Stefaan Missinne. 2013. A Newly Discovered Early Sixteenth-Century Globe Engraved on an Ostrich Egg. Portolan, no. 87
