Vincenzo Maria Coronelli's Atlante Veneto and the Diagrammatic Tradition of Cosmography

See, for example, Philip's great world atlas (London, 1994).

“Cosmografo della Serenissima Republica, e Professore di Geografia Nell'Universita di Venetia”, titlepage of Coronelli Vincenzo , Atlante veneto, nel quale si contiene la descrittione geografica, storica, sacra, profana, e politica, degl'imperii, regni, provincie, e stati dell'universo, loro divisione, e confini, coll'aggiunta di tutti li paesi nuovamente scoperte, accresciuto di molte tavole geografiche, non più publicate (Venice, 1691). Two copies of this 1691 reissue of the 1690 Atlante veneto have formed the basis of this study; for a brief account of the publishing history of the work, see Armao Ermanno , Vincenzo Coronelli: Cenni sull'uomo e la sua vita catalogo ragionato delle sue opere lettere – fonti bibliografiche – indice (Florence, 1944), 100–6. Throughout, references given are to editions consulted, which are not necessarily the first editions of those works.

“Ad uso dell'accademia cosmografica degli Argonauti”, titlepage of Coronelli , Atlante veneto (ref. 2).

Armao , Vincenzo Coronelli (ref. 2), 29–30.

For a more detailed account of the forms of Renaissance cosmography, see Mosley Adam , “The cosmographer's role in the sixteenth century: A preliminary study”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, lix (2009), 423–39.

Karrow Robert W. , Mapmakers of the sixteenth century and their maps: Bio-bibliographies of the cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570 (Chicago, 1993), 216–49.

Brótons Victor Navarro , “Astronomy and cosmography 1561–1625: Different aspects of the activities of Spanish and Portuguese mathematicians and cosmographers”, in Saraiva Luís Leitão Henrique (eds), The practice of mathematics in Portugal (Coimbra, 2004), 225–74; Portuondo Mariá M. , Secret science: Spanish cosmography and the New World (Chicago, 2009).

Fiorani Francesca , The marvel of maps: Art, cartography and politics in Renaissance Italy (New Haven, 2005).

McLean Matthew , The Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster: Describing the world in the Reformation (Aldershot, 2007).

Berggren J. Lennart Jones Alexander , Ptolemy's Geography: An annotated translation of the theoretical chapters (Princeton, 2000), 5–17. For Sacobosco, see, of course, Thorndike Lynn , The Sphere of Sacrobosco and its commentators (Chicago, 1949).

See, on these, Müller Kathrin , Visuelle Weltaneignung: Astronomische und kosmologische Diagramme in lateinischen Handschriften des 11. bis frühen 14. Jahrhunderts (Göttingen, 2008).

Thevet André , La cosmographie universelle (Paris, 1575), 2v; see also Cellarius Andreas , Atlas coelestis seu harmonia macrocosmica (Amsterdam, 1661), plate 11.

Hodgen Margaret T. , “Sebastian Muenster (1489–1552): A sixteenth-century ethnographer”, Osiris , xi (1954), 504–29, p. 514; Thevet , Cosmographie universelle (ref. 12); François de Belleforest, La cosmographie universelle de tout le monde (Paris, 1575).

See, for one example, Mosley Adam , “Early modern cosmography: Fine's Sphaera mundi in content and context”, in Marr Alexander (ed.), The worlds of Oronce Fine: Mathematics, instruments and print in Renaissance France (Donington, 2009), 114–36.

See Mosley , “The cosmographer's role” (ref. 5), 435–7.

The Atlas was placed on the Index in 1603; see de Bujanda Jesus Martinez , Index librorum prohibitorum 1600–1966 (Sherbrooke, 2002). Coronelli, in the catalogue of authors in his Atlante veneto (ref. 2), tells us that it was chapter 18 of Mercator's account of the creation and fabric of the world, and what it had to say about ‘original sin’, that attracted censure.

Blaeu Joan , Atlas maior, sive cosmographia blaviana (Amsterdam, 1662), sig. a2 v, sig. c r – sig. f v.

van Gent Robert , Cellarius atlas: The divine sky — History's most beautiful celestial atlas (Harmonia macrocosmica of 1660) (Cologne, 2007), 9–10.

Armao , Vincenzo Coronelli (ref. 2), 59–62, 203–19.

Coronelli Vincenzo , Epitome cosmografica, o compendiosa introduttione all'astronomia, geografia, & idrografia, per l'uso, dilucidatione, e fabbrica delle sfere, globi, planisferi, astrolabi, e tavole geografiche, e particolarmente degli stampati (Cologne, 1693); Armao , Vincenzo Coronelli (ref. 2), 189–92.

Armao , Vincenzo Coronelli (ref. 2), 7–16.

Armao , Vincenzo Coronelli (ref. 2), 96–7, 114–23, 171–2.

Armao Ermanno , Il “catalogi degli autori” di Vincenzo Coronelli: Una bibliografia geografica del '600 (Florence, 1957).

Münster Sebastian , Cosmographiae universalis (Basle, 1552), sig. 6v; McLean, Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster (ref. 9), 59, 270, 304.

“… arduo, e laborioso cimento di rappresentare il Mondo intero, quale per sentimento del Grand'Aristotele, altro non e, ch'un unione del Cielo, e della Terra”; “una scienza Matematica, che spiega la figura, la grandezza, il luogo, il moto, e l'illumination del Mondo, e delle sue Parti, servendosi delli principii tanto estrinseci, desonti dali puri Matematici, Aritmetici, e Geometrici, quanto intrinseci, e proprii, come sono le Fenomene, o l'Apparenze, & Osservationi”, Coronelli , Atlante veneto (ref. 2), 1–2.

Pedersen Olaf , “The theorica planetarum literature of the Middle Ages”, Classica et mediaevalia, xxiii (1962), 225–32.

Thorndike , op. cit. (ref. 10), 141–2.

Maurolyco Francesco , Cosmographia in tres dialogos (Venice, 1543), 24r, 77r–79r.

Mercator Bartholomaeus , Breves in sphaeram meditatiunculae, includentes methodum et isagogen in universam cosmographiam, hoc est, geographiae pariter atque astronomiae initia ac rudimenta suggerentes (Cologne, 1563); sig. i4 r; Barozzi Francesco , Cosmographia in quatuor libros distributa, summo ordine, miraque facilitate, ac brevitate ad magnam Ptolemaei mathematicam constructionem, ad universamque astrologiam instituens (Venice, 1598), 235; Cellarius , Atlas (ref. 12), plate 14. For an example of the theoricae diagrams, and an explanation of their significance, see Jardine Nicholas , “The significance of the Copernican orbs”, Journal for the history of astronomy , xiii (1982), 168–94, pp. 169–70.

de la Charlonye Gabriel , De sphaera mundi sive de cosmographia libri II (Tours, 1593), 7r–7v; Merula Paul , Cosmographiae generalis libri tres (Amsterdam, 1605), 211.

See the discussion in Heninger S. K. Jr , The cosmographical glass: Renaissance diagrams of the universe (San Marino, 1977), 58–80; for an example of a world-map depicting the world-systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus side-by-side, the 1660 map of Fredrick de Wit, see Allen Philip , An atlas of atlases (London, 2005), 78–9.

Biancani Giuseppe , Sphaera mundi, seu cosmographia demonstrativa, ac facile methodo tradita (Modena, 1635), 27, 33.

Blaeu also included the system of Andrea Argoli; see Blaeu , Atlas maior (ref. 17), sig. c v – sig. c2 r; Cellarius, Atlas (ref. 12), plates 1, 4, 6.

Coronelli , Atlante veneto (ref. 2), 7–9; Epitome (ref. 20), 26–32.

Allen Philip , Atlas of atlases (London, 2005), 78–9.

See Swerdlow N. M. Neugebauer O. , Mathematical astronomy in Copernicus's De revolutionibus (New York, 1984), 127.

Brahe Tycho , De mundi aethereis recentioribus phaenomenis (Uraniborg, 1588), 189.

See Le monde de Mr Descartes, ou le traité de la lumière et des autres principaux objets des sens (Paris, 1664), 116, for the more recognizable image of the Cartesian cosmos.

Armao , Vincenzo Coronelli (ref. 2), 198–9.

For an introduction to at least some of the concepts employed here, see Barton Tamsyn , Ancient astrology (London, 1994), 92–102; Ackermann Silke , “Astrological scales on the National Maritime Museum astrolabes”, in van Cleempoel Koenraad (ed.), Astrolabes at Greenwich (Oxford, 2005), 73–89.

Apian Peter , Cosmographicus liber (Landshut, 1524), sig. + v, where an aspectarium forms part of the “Instrumentum noctis”; Maurolyco , Cosmographia (ref. 28), 46v; Barozzi , Cosmographia (ref. 29), 293; Cellarius , Atlas (ref. 12), plate 15.

Apian , Cosmographicus liber (ref. 41), 19. See also Cellarius , Atlas (ref. 12), plate 16; Proctor David , “The construction and use of the astrolabe”, in van Cleempoel (ed.), Astrolabes (ref. 40), 15–22, p. 20.

See, on this instrument, Vanden Broecke Steven , “Dee, Mercator, and Louvain instrument making: An undescribed astrological disc by Gerard Mercator (1551)”, Annals of science , lviii (2001), 219–10. I am grateful to Stephen Johnston for suggesting this as a possible precursor to Coronelli's Idea.

The same astrological disc provided the basis for scales on an astrolabe made by Thomas Gemini; see Ackermann , “Astrological scales” (ref. 40), 82–4.

Heninger , Cosmographical glass (ref. 31), 20, 177.

Sinclair John D. , The Divine comedy of Dante Alighieri (3 vols, New York, 1981), I, 19.

Coronelli Vincenzo , Cronologia universale (Venice, 1707), 42–3.

Cf. Kusukawa's Sachiko “Andreas Nolthius' Almanach for 1575”, in this issue, 91–110.

Berggren Jones , Ptolemy's Geography (ref. 10), 10; Thorndike , Sphere of Sacrobosco (ref. 10), 138–40; Apian , Cosmographicus liber (ref. 41), 13–14; Maurolyco , Cosmographia (ref. 28), 63r–v; Belleforest , Cosmographie (ref. 13), 59–60; Blundeville Thomas , Exercises (London, 1594), 194v.

See, on these, Ackermann , “Astrological scales” (ref. 40), 76–9.

For some examples, see Maurolyco , Cosmographia (ref. 28), 86v; Blundeville , Exercises (ref. 49), 148r; Barozzi , Cosmographia (ref. 29), 324; Biancani, Sphaera mundi (ref. 32), 195.

Barker Peter , “The optical theory of comets from Apian to Kepler”, Physis , xxx (1993), 1–25.

For one such example, from Cuningham's William The cosmographicall glasse, see Heninger , Cosmographical glass (ref. 31), 178.

For an example, from Girault Simon , Globe du monde (Langres, 1592), see Heninger , Cosmographical glass (ref. 31), 9.

Apian , Cosmographicus liber (ref. 41), 56; Maurolyco , Cosmographia (ref. 28), 16r; Dodonaeus Rembertus , Cosmographica in astronomiam et geographiam isagoge (Antwerp, 1548), sig. Eii r; Mercator , Breves in sphaeram meditatiunculae (ref. 29), sig. g2 r; Barozzi , Cosmographia (ref. 29), 21.

Robbins F. E. (ed. and transl.), Ptolemy: Tetrabiblos (Cambridge, MA, 1940), 82–7.

See Heninger , Cosmographical glass (ref. 31), 116–24.

There is only a superficial relationship to tidal rotae of the kind discussed in Hughes Paul , “Implicit Carolingian tidal data”, Early science and medicine, viii (2003), 1–24, which relate the lunar month to tide cycles.

Dodonaeus , Cosmographica isagoge (ref. 55), sig. Dv; Barozzi , Cosmographia (ref. 29), 30.

Apian , Cosmographicus liber (ref. 41), 53; Apian Peter , Cosmographiae introductio: Cum quibusdam geometriae ac astronomiae principiis ad eam rem necessariis (Venice, 1533), 17v; Maurolyco , Cosmographia (ref. 28), 39v, 40r; Mercator , Breves in sphaeram meditatiunculae (ref. 29), sig. g2 v; Blundeville , Exercises (ref. 49), 201v, 202v; Barozzi , Cosmographia (ref. 29), 111–13; Blaeu , Atlas maior (ref. 17), sig. fr; Coronelli , Epitome (ref. 20), plates between 22 and 23.

Dilke O. A. W. , Greek and Roman maps (Baltimore, 1998), 28–9, 31, 53, 110–11, 170; Berggren Jones , Ptolemy's Geography (ref. 10), 15.

Waldseemüller Martin , Cosmographiae introductio cum quibusdam geometriae ac astronomiae principiis ad eam rem necessariis (Saint Dié, 1507), facing sig. a iiii v.

See Obrist Barbara , “Wind diagrams and medieval cosmology”, Speculum , lxxii (1997), 33–84; de Callataÿ Godefroid , “Géographies astrologiques et roses de vents”, in Deitz Luc (ed.), Tempus edax rerum: Le bicentenaire de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg (1798–1998) (Luxembourg, 2001), 131–41.

Berggren Jones , Ptolemy's Geography (ref. 10), 38–40, 112–16. Such an image, without the winds, can be seen on the titlepage of Apian, Cosmographiae introductio (ref. 60).

Some commentaries on De sphaera addressed the winds; see Thorndike , Sphere of Sacrobosco (ref. 10), 320.

Heninger , Cosmographical glass (ref. 31), 148–9.

Apian , Cosmographicus liber (ref. 41), 53.

This is one fault with the otherwise excellent Fiorani , The marvel of maps (ref. 8).

E.g. Kish George , A sourcebook in geography (Cambridge, MA, 1978), 350.

Heninger , Cosmographical glass (ref. 31).