Terrestrial & Celestial Globes. Edward Luther Stevenson

found with all that was needed for two years, in order to find out what was beyond the St. Jacob’s Cape of Finisterre. The ships thus provisioned sailed continuously to the westward for 500 German miles, and in the end they sighted these ten islands. On landing they found nothing but a wilderness and birds which were so tame that they fled from no one. But of men or of four footed animals none had come to live there because of the wildness, and this accounts for the birds not having been shy. On this ground the islands were called dos Azores, that is, Hawk Islands, and in the year after, the king of Portugal sent sixteen ships with various tame animals and put some of these on each island there to multiply.”107

      Fig. 23. Globe of Martin Behaim in Hemispheres.

The following legend relates to the islands of Antilia. “Als man zelt nach cristi gepurt 734 jar als ganz hispania von dn̄ heiden auf affrica gewonon wurdt do wurdt bewont di obgeschriben Insuln Antilia genant Septe citade von einem erzbischoff von porto portigal mit sech andern bischoffs und andern cristen man und frawen dj zu sciff von hispanie das geflohen kommen mit Irem vieh hab und gut anno 1414 ist ein schiff aus hispania ungefert darbei gewest am negsten.” “In the year 734 of Christ when the whole of Spain had been won by the heathen of Africa, the above island Antilia called Septa Citade (Seven Cities) was inhabited by an archbishop from Porto in Portugal, with six other bishops and other Christians, men and women, who had fled thither from Spain by ship, together with their cattle, belongings and goods. 1414 a ship from Spain got nighest it without being endangered.”108

      Through the inspiration of Behaim the construction of globes in the city of Nürnberg became a new industry to which the art activities of the city greatly contributed. The chief magistrate induced his fellow citizen to give instruction in the art of making such instruments, yet this seems to have lasted but a short time, for we learn that not long after the completion of his now famous “Erdapfel,” Behaim returned to Portugal, where he died in the year 1507.

Martin Behaim’s map of the world was drawn on parchment which had been pasted over a large sphere. The Laon globe,109 apparently following closely in time the former, is an engraved and gilded copper ball, having a diameter of 17 cm. There is evidence that at one time it was part of an astronomical clock.110 The engraved surface, on which appear the outlines of continents and islands, is well preserved. It has two meridian circles, which intersect at right angles and which can be moved about a common axis, likewise a horizon circle which is movable. Numerous circles appear engraved on the surface of the ball, including meridians and parallels. The prime meridian passes through the Madeira Islands, a fact which suggests a Portuguese origin, since these islands are generally thought to have been discovered by Lusitanian seamen. One hundred and eighty degrees east of this prime meridian, a second meridian is engraved, equally prominent, passing through the middle of the continent of Asia, and 90 degrees still farther to eastward is a third. Each of these meridians is divided into degrees, which are grouped in fifths and are numbered by tens, starting at the equator. The meridians are intersected by a number of parallels, lightly engraved in the northern hemisphere, less distinct in the southern, and represent the seven climates employed by the cosmographers of the Greek and Roman period, as well as by those of the middle ages, in their division of the earth’s surface.

      As to its geographical representations, this terrestrial globe appears to be older than that of Martin Behaim, yet at the southern extremity of Africa we find the name “Mons Niger,” inscribed with the legend “Huc usque Portugalenses navigio pervenere 1493.”

The great enterprise of Christopher Columbus (Fig. 24), wherein he may be said to have achieved a final victory for the doctrine of a spherical earth, entitled his name to a place of prominence in the history of terrestrial globes. That Columbus himself constructed globes, as has been sometimes inferred from a statement of Las Casas, may, however, be questioned, since this statement touches the reputed correspondence between Columbus and Toscanelli, which correspondence, in the light of the very searching studies of Mr. Henry Vignaud, must now be considered to be of doubtful authenticity.111 It appears, however, from this letter that the famous Italian cosmographer, Pauolo Toscanelli, himself was accustomed to explain problems arising in the field of discovery by the use of the globe, and Las Casas tells us that Columbus resolved to write to him, making known his intentions, which he desired to be able to fulfil, and sent to him a globe through Lorenzo Girardi, a Florentine, at that time residing in Lisbon.112 Ferdinand Columbus, referring to this incident, says that “the globe was a small one.”113 In referring to Bartholomew, the son of Christopher Columbus, Las Casas observes that “he was a man of prudence and of great intelligence in all matters pertaining to the seas. I believe not much less learned in cosmography and in what relates thereto, the making of navigator’s charts and globes and other instruments of that kind.”114 Again, we find in a letter which Christopher Columbus directed to their Catholic Majesties, that he “sent to their Majesties a certain round representation.”115 None of these references to globes, as before stated, necessarily give us to understand that Christopher Columbus was a globe maker. Certain it is that none is now known attributed to him or to his son.

      Fig. 24. Lorenzo Lotto Portrait of Columbus.

The explorer, John Cabot (1450–1498) (Fig. 25), is likewise reputed to have been interested in the construction of globes. In a dispatch sent from London, December 18, 1497, by the envoy Raimondi di Soncino to the Duke of Milan, we read that “this Master John has a description of the world on a map, and also on a solid sphere, which he has made, and it shows where he landed, and that sailing toward the east (west) he had passed far beyond the region of the Tanais.”116

      Fig. 25. Portrait of Sebastian Cabot, Son of John Cabot.

      That terrestrial globes were constructed toward the close of the fifteenth century is of significance, not only as a response to a new desire for more nearly accurate representation of the earth’s surface than could be set forth on a plane map, but it is likewise significant by reason of the fact that such globes as were constructed served to demonstrate the value of globe maps, and this value once demonstrated, they served to awaken a still further interest in globe making, which bears abundant fruitage in the following century.

There is a very remarkable celestial globe of the fifteenth century now belonging to the Lyceum Library of Constance, Switzerland. It is the work of Johannes Stöffler (1452–1531),117 at one time a pastor in the town of Justingen, later a professor of mathematics in the University of Tübingen, where he achieved renown as mathematician, astronomer, cosmographer, and mechanic. It appears from the title of a publication attributed to Stöffler, ‘De artificiosa globi terrestris compositione,’