Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Volume 2 / Their History and Construction Including a Consideration of their Value as Aids in the Study of Geography and Astronomy

by Edward Luther Stevenson

Fig. 103a. Terrestrial Globe of Dominico Rossi (Mattheus Greuter), 1695.

Fig. 103b. Celestial Globe of Dominico Rossi (Mattheus Greuter), 1695.

Attention has previously been called to the reproduction in Italy of the Hondius globes by Giuseppe de Rossi in the year 1615. It appears that to the Rossi family belonged a number of map engravers and art printers during the seventeenth century and particularly to that branch making its home in the city of Rome. As globe makers we however find them playing the rôle of copyists rather than that of independent producers.

In The Hispanic Society’s collection of old globes may be found a pair in an excellent state of preservation signed “Dominici de Rubeis (Rossi),” and dated “1695.” Each globe ball is composed of papier-mâché, having a diameter of 49 cm. and each is covered with a map printed on twelve gores, with a small circular disc for the polar space (Figs. [103a], [103b]). In the List of Globe Makers other examples are noted.

In the South Pacific, on the terrestrial globe, one finds the inscription “Romae ex Chalcographia Dominici de Rubeis, heredis 70. Jacobi, ad templum S. Mariae de Pace, Anno 1695.” Dominico, whose name here appears, achieved considerable distinction as the publisher, with his relative Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi, of an atlas of one hundred and fifty-two maps, one of the finest examples of Italian cartography of the period. In a cartouch in the South Atlantic, on this globe, we find the name Mattheus Greuter given as the engraver, whose work has been referred to above, clearly suggesting that Rossi had merely reissued a globe of earlier date, since Greuter had died in the year 1638. A careful examination of the globe map confirms the suggestion, since no record is made of geographical discoveries after the year 1630. In the region of the North Pole the discoveries of the English and of the Dutch are recorded to the year 1628, and it may further be noted that in this same northern region the islands of “Frislanda” and “Brasil” are laid down, while in Greenland is a reference to the location of the fabled Monastery of St. Thomas.

References are made in legends to the discoveries of Magellan, Lemaire, Schouten, Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, and Drake. The region about New York is called “Nieu Nederland.” One can recognize the representation of the St. Lawrence, and the Mississippi. In the western region of the New World there appears to be considerable confusion as to the geography of the country, apparently the result of reading, without understanding, the records of the Spanish and of the English. One finds, for example, California represented as an island, and a double representation of the Strait of Anian.

The Spanish, French, English, Dutch, and Latin languages have been employed in names and legends.

The mounting of the globe is artistic and substantial, consisting of the usual horizon circle, octagonal on its outer edge, but circular on the inner edge to receive the globe ball, and having pasted on its upper surface the usual engraved paper strips and all that there is engraved thereon in the best examples of globe making. The meridian circle of wood, within which the sphere is made to revolve, is graduated. The supporting base consists of four exquisitely turned columns, braced at bottom with correspondingly well-turned crossbars.