1688 / 1697 Coronelli Globe Gore: Grand Banks, Azores, and Cape Verde Islands

This scarce, beautiful engraving is a 1688 Coronelli globe gore map of the Atlantic Ocean from the Equator to 50° N, encompassing the Grand Banks, the Azores Islands, and the Cape Verde Islands. It was engraved in Vincenzo Coronelli's 42-inch (3 1/2 foot) terrestrial globe, reprinted in 1697 for inclusion in his Libro dei Globi and Isolario. In addition to the above locations, it includes near the equator an archipelago labeled 'Revedo de S. Pedro' which may represent the Atlantic island of Saint Paul. Among the other islands featured is the mythical paradise of St. Brendan.

A Closer Look…

Coronelli's connections in Paris meant that he could rely on superb data for those places where the French were foremost in exploration: the gore includes part of the sailing tracks of Chaumont's 1685 embassy from France to Siam, for example. Coronelli also includes the tracks of the typical route across these waters from Europe to the Americas and back. As is typical of Coronelli's maps and globes, the present work is filled with historical and descriptive annotations. These discuss such themes as the yearly competition for the codfish of the Grand Banks by European fishermen (and, apparently, great flocks of birds), the possibility that the island of Madera was known to the ancients Pliny and Ptolemy under different names, and the discovery of the Cape Verde Islands by the Portuguese in 1460. A descriptive text in the lower left discusses the mouths of the River Amazon, which appeared in the gore to the left of this one.

The Imaginary Island of St. Brendan

Coronelli includes, about halfway between the Azores and the Cape Verde Islands, the 'undiscovered and believed to be fabled' island of Saint Brendan. This phantom island was first conceived as early as CE 512, when its namesake claimed to have landed on it and celebrated a Mass with a group of 14 monks. In his hagiography of Saint Brendan, the monk Barino mentioned having visited this same island in the Atlantic, describing it in such a way that it could be construed as the terrestrial Eden. Despite no concrete charting of the island, it appears on several medieval mappamundi. Portuguese sailors reported having seen, but not having landed upon it, and it was among the wonders that Christopher Columbus hoped to discover. Efforts to locate the island in the 16th century resulted in unprovable reports of visits and sightings, and despite the lack of concrete evidence it continued to appear for many years - though seldom accompanied by such a skeptical commentary as here.

In Context

Although much of the detail of this map can be seen to be substantially the same as that which appears on Coronelli's two-sheet America Settentrionale, the finer elements - such as the ships' tracks - appear to be unique to the globe. The globe engraving predates that of the map, which has a terminus post quem of 1690.

Coronelli's Most Beautifully Engraved Plate of the Region

The gore is of superb workmanship, visible in its well-placed, contrasting text, and its bold lines The general delineation is the same as would appear on Coronelli's two-sheet America Settentrionale and his two-sheet map of Africa, but close comparison reveals the engravings for the globe gore to be superior in detail and execution. Clearly Coronelli applied higher standards to his globes than to his conventional printed maps, as beautiful as those were. In particular, the sailing tracks appearing on this gore are repeated neither on the two sheet America map nor on the Africa.

Publication History and Census

This engraving was executed in 1688, as part of Coronelli's 3 1/2 foot terrestrial globe, and was masked off for inclusion in one of Coronelli's bound volumes: this sheet can be found in both the Libro Dei Globi and the Isolario. Scianna has catalogued only thirteen copies of the full Libro dei Globi in institutional and private collections; perhaps a dozen examples of the Isolario are catalogued in institutional collections. We see no example of the separate gore catalogued in OCLC.