[95] Bourgeat, J. B. Études sur Vincent de Beauvais. Paris, 1856.
[96] Biographies of Dante are numerous. See his Purgatorio, Canto XXVII, lines 1-4, referring to midday on the Ganges when it is dawn in Jerusalem; see also his Aqua et Terra, wherein he gives expression to a belief in the spherical theory.
Chapter V
Globes Constructed in the Early Years of the Great Geographical Discoveries
Increasing interest in geographical discovery and maritime enterprise in the fourteenth and the fifteenth century.—Awakened interest in globe construction.—Martin Behaim and his globe of the year 1492.—The Laon globe.—Christopher and Bartholomew Columbus and their interest in globes.—John Cabot and his globe.—Globes of Johannes Stöffler.—Conrad Celtes and his part in arousing an interest in globes.
THE fourteenth century witnessed among the peoples of Italy and of the Iberian coast regions a rapidly rising interest in maritime enterprise. The expansion of Europe, which for two centuries had been overland and eastward, was now becoming oceanic, with an outlook southward and westward into the Atlantic. In the fifteenth century, under the inspiration of Prince Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese were feeling their way down the coast of Africa, adding year by year to their knowledge of hitherto unknown lands;[97] the Atlantic island groups, one by one, were discovered or rediscovered,[98] and in 1487 Bartholomew Diaz turned the Cape of Good Hope and opened a new way to the Indies of the East.[99] Through all these enterprises a new and vigorous stimulus was given to interest in geographical studies, just as an awakening had followed the disclosure of the riches of the East by Carpini, Rubruquis, and especially by Marco Polo in the earlier post-crusading years.[100]
Out of this lively interest in all that pertained to the expansion of knowledge concerning the various regions of the earth came a desire for better map making,[101] and attention was again intelligently directed to the construction of terrestrial globes on which to represent the most recently discovered seas, islands, and continental coasts.
It was Martin Behaim of Nürnberg (1459-1507),[102] who, in so far as we have knowledge, constructed one of the first modern terrestrial globes (Fig. [21]), and it may, indeed, be said of his “Erdapfel,” as he called it, that it is the oldest terrestrial globe extant. Behaim (Fig. [22]) belonged to the merchant class of a flourishing South German city. He took advantage of the opportunities which were offered him for travel, though it is hardly probable that he is entitled to that renown as an African coast explorer with which certain of his biographers have attempted to crown him, nor does it appear that he is entitled to a very prominent place among the men famed in his day for their astronomical and nautical knowledge. It was doubtless for reasons primarily commercial that he first found his way to Portugal, where, shortly after his arrival, probably in the year 1484, he was honored by King John with an appointment as a member of a nautical or mathematical Junta. During his earlier years in Portugal he was connected with one or more expeditions down the coast of Africa, was knighted by the king, presumably for his services, and made his home for some years on the island of Fayal. In the year 1490 he returned for a visit to his native city, Nürnberg, and there is reason for believing that on this occasion he was received with much honor by his fellow townsmen. It was the suggestion of George Holzschuher, member of the City Council, and himself somewhat famed as a traveler, that eventually brought special renown to our globe maker, for he it was who proposed to his colleagues of the Council that Martin Behaim should be requested to undertake the construction of a globe on which the recent Portuguese and other discoveries should be represented. From a record on the globe itself, placed within the Antarctic circle, we learn that the work was undertaken on the authority of three distinguished citizens, Gabriel Nutzel, Paul Volckamer, and Nikolaus Groland.[103] It is an interesting fact that we are able to follow in detail the construction of the globe through its several stages, as the accounts of George Holzschuher, to whom was entrusted the general supervision of the work, have been preserved.[104] From his report, presented at the conclusion of the undertaking, we learn the names of those who participated in the production of the globe; we learn the amount received by each for his labors, and that the total cost to the city for the completed product was something less than seventy-five dollars. Information is given therein as to the division of the work; how the spherical shell was prepared; how the vellum covering was fitted to the sphere; how the rings and the globe supports were supplied; finally, how the artist, Glockenthon, transferred the map to the prepared surface of the ball and added to the same the several miniatures, illustrating in rich color a variety of subjects.