Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (August 16, 1650 - December 9, 1718) was an important 17th-century cartographer and globe maker based in Venice. Coronelli was born the fifth child of a Venetian tailor. Unlikely to inherit his father's business, he instead apprenticed in Ravenna to a woodcut artist. Around 1663, Coronelli joined the Franciscan Order and, in 1671, entered the Venetian convent of Saint Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Coronelli excelled in the fields of cosmography, mathematics, and geography. Although his works include the phenomenal Atlante Veneto and Corso Geografico, Coronelli is best known for his globes. In 1678, Coronelli was commissioned to make his first major globes by Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma. Each superbly engraved globe was five feet in diameter. Louis IV of France, having heard of the magnificent Parma globes, invited Coronelli to Paris, where from 1681-83 he constructed an even more impressive pair of globes measuring over 12 feet in diameter and weighing 2 tons each. The globes earned him the patronage of Louis XIV and privileged access to French cartographic information from Jesuit sources in the New World, particularly Louisiana. Coronelli returned to Venice and continued to publish globes, maps, and atlases, which were admired all over Europe for their beauty, accuracy, and detail. He had a particular fascination for the Great Lakes region, and his early maps of this area were unsurpassed in accuracy for nearly 100 years after their initial publication. He is also well known for his groundbreaking publication of the first accurate map depicting the sources of the Blue Nile. At the height of his career, Coronelli founded the world's first geographical society, the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti, and was awarded the official title Cosmographer of the Republic of Venice. In 1699, in recognition of his extraordinary accomplishment and scholarship, Coronelli was also appointed Father General of the Franciscan Order. The great cartographer and globe maker died in Venice at the age of 68. His extraordinary globes can be seen today at the Bibliothèque Nationale François Mitterrand in Paris, Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, the National Library of Austria, the Globe Museum in Vienna, the Library of Stift Melk, the Special Collections Library of Texas Tech University, as well as lesser works in Trier, Prague, London, and Washington D.C. Coronelli's work is notable for its distinctive style, which is characterized by the high-quality white paper, dark intense impressions, detailed renderings of topographical features in profile, and numerous cartographic innovations. More by this mapmaker...

Diego Dionisio de Peñalosa Briceño y Berdugo (1621–1687) was a Spanish colonial soldier and sometime governor of Spanish New Mexico. He was born in Lima, Perú; his early career saw him working within the Spanish Imperial bureaucracy. He rose to the position of Alcalde in the Viceroyalty of Peru, but accusations of misconduct forced him to flee the jurisdiction to evade arrest. He joined the army in New Spain, rising again through the ranks until the Viceroy of New Spain appointed him Governor of New Mexico, a position he would hold from 1661 to 1664. Peñalosa would earn the enmity of Spanish Catholic friars by permitting his domain's Pueblos to retain their cultures and religious practices. This ultimately would see him declared a blasphemer and heretic by Catholic tribunal, and exiled from New Spain in 1665. He then offered his services to James II of England (refused) and then in 1678 to the King of France, Louis XIV (also rejected.) As part of his effort to woo Louis, he provided the French with a manuscript map of New Mexico and the neighboring provinces, notably revealing Spain's silver mines and actively encouraging the French to send him to take the province. He would die in 1687 before any of these plans bore fruit. Learn More...