SIGNED VINCENTIUS CORONELLI, 1691, LONDON

Vincenzo Coronelli (1650-1718) was born in Venice, apprenticed in the art of wood-cutting, joined the Franciscan order of Conventional Friars Minor in 1665, and in 1671 entered the convent of S. Maria Gloriosa dei Friari in Venice. Around 1680 he made his first pair of 390cm. diameter manuscript globes for the library of Duke Ranuccio Farnese de Palma. These were noticed by the ambassador to the French King in the Cardinal César d'Estrées, through whose offices Coronelli was commissioned to make a similar pair of globes for Louis XIV. He remained in Paris from 1681 until 1683 to complete the pair - the famous 'Marly' globes, named for the place in which they now reside - which were an enormous 385cm. in diameter and garnered him a reputation of international renown, not only as a globe-maker of no small skill and elegance, but also as the first major manufacturer outside the Netherlands to achieve any sort of success. It was this experience which persuaded Coronelli to set up as a manufacturer and publisher of globes and maps in a serious way. In 1684 he founded the first geographical society in the form of the Accademia Cosmographica degli Argonauti, which was funded by subscriptions from the nobility and ecclesiastical, political and scientific elite all over Europe. Coronelli then set up his workshop in the convent in 1686, and started work on his first pair of printed globes, but there was a scarcity of qualified engravers in Venice. In response to this problem, he enlisted the aid of Jean-Baptiste Nolin (1657-1725), engraver to the French King, whose work on the celestial gores was at that time, and for many years subsequently, unparalleled. Italian engravers worked on the terrestrial gores in Venice, while the celestial gores were fashioned in Paris after drawings produced by Arnold Deuvez.

Coronelli was also globe maker to William III and his London output is small by comparison with that of Venice. In Peter van der Krogt's Old Globes in the Netherlands there are two 47cm Coronellis described, both dated 1696 (Cor 1 and Cor 3) which bear a cartouche stating that they were made in London.

A pair of facsimile globes after Coronelli's celebrated 43in. (110cm.) diameter pair of 1688/93 were sold Christie's South Kensington, 24 November 1999, lot 104 (32,200 £).