Maps

The remarkable Vincenzo Coronelli (1650-1718) encyclopaedist, geographer, inventor and Doctor of Theology, was a citizen of the most Serene Republic of Venice. He was also one of the most prominent mapmakers and publishers in the Europe of his day. He is credited with having drawn and engraved over 500 maps. His lasting fame rests on a pair of gigantic globes, which were constructed for Louis X1V of France in 1683. Measuring some 15 feet in diameter, they were the largest globes the world had known; the King had special spectacles made for reading them. On the strength of this resounding international success, Coronelli was appointed Cosmographer to the Most Serene Republic in 1685. He also taught geography at the University of Venice.

Some years previously he had entered the Franciscan Order of the Conventual Friars Minor, and the convent of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari de Venice became his cartographic workshop. Coronelli was elected General of the Minorite Order in 1701 and founded the Academia Cosmografica degli Argonauti, the first geographical society in the world. He also found time to devise a system of sea defences for the Venice Lido, design a dredging machine and invent a new method of salt extraction and purification.

The first volume of Coronelli's Atlante Veneto, entitled Descrizione Generale Istorica Geografica, was intended as an extension of the Blaeu atlas. The work contained sections on astronomy, geography (with a chapter on exploration from 1200 to 1680) and hydrography. The appendix included an "ecclesiastical gazetteer".