The Royal Estense Library of Modena is in possession of a well-preserved pair of Blaeu’s large globes, as the librarian has kindly informed the author.[46] Each is supplied with an artistic wooden base, with a meridian and a horizon circle, the whole being about 79 cm. in height. Each is furnished with a domelike cover of pasteboard, over the outside of which, and crossing at right angles, are two bands of carved leaves, and in each of the four spaces thus formed is a decoration consisting of the lily of the Royal House of France. It appears not to be known how or when these globes came to the Estense Library; perhaps as a gift to a prince of the Ducal House of Este, from a member of the House of Orleans, or they were purchased perchance by an Estense ambassador once having residence in Holland, as has been suggested.
Other undated pairs of the 1622 and 1640 issues may be found in the Seminario Vescovile of Chioggia, in the Museo di Strumenti Antichi of Florence, in the Biblioteca Governativo of Lucca, in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples, in the Biblioteca Chigi of Rome (Fig. [97]), in the Collegio delle Scuole Pie of Savona, in the Liceo Marco Foscarini of Venice (Fig. [98]), in the Pinacoteca Quirini of Venice, and in the private library of Count Francesco Franco of Venice. A copy of the terrestrial only may be found in the Biblioteca Comunale of Como, in the Königl. Math. Phys. Salon in Dresden, in the Istituto Tecnico of Florence, in the Biblioteca delle Misione Urbane of Genoa, in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum of Nürnberg, and a copy of the eighteen unmounted terrestrial globe gores, probably of the year 1647, in the British Museum. A copy of the celestial globe only may be found in the Biblioteca Civico of Aquila in the Königl. Math. Phys. Salon of Dresden, and one in the British Museum, which is reported, however, to have a diameter of only twenty-four inches.
Fig. 97. Terrestrial Globe of Willem Jansz. Blaeu, 1622.
Fig. 98. Celestial Globe of Willem Jansz. Blaeu, 1622.
