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KF5JRV > TECH 26.07.16 16:06l 67 Lines 3688 Bytes #-3557 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Brief History of Globes
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A brief history of globes
Written evidence suggests that people have used globes to model the world
around them since antiquity; Strabo (63/64BCE-24CE) reported that Crates of
Mallos had a globe of the equivalent of 10 feet in diameter. Globes are
delicate, though, and the surviving evidence for early globe use is sparse.
The earliest globe that survives today was made in 1492 by Martin Behaim, a
German navigator and geographer in the employ of King Joćo II of Portugal.
Behaim's globe recorded not only the lie of the lands being discovered by
seabourne explorers, but also details of overseas commodities, market places
and local trading protocols. Thus, the earliest surviving globe, which
probably reflects many others produced around the same time, features
information on more than cartography.
Globes retained appeal to a wide range of audiences into the 16th century.
Gemma Frisius, a Dutch cartographer, mathematician and instrument maker who
worked at Louvain, wrote in his Principiis de astronomiae et cosmographiae (
1530) that:
The mounted globe ... is the only one of all instruments whose frequent
usage delights astronomers, leads geographers, confirms historians,
enriches and improves legists [les legists], is admired by grammarians,
guides pilots, in short, aside from its beauty, its form is indescribably
useful and necessary for everyone.
Frisius' account of globes as beautiful as well as useful is significant -
globes have tended to attract attention as art objects, as well as for their
depiction of geographically, politically and economically important lands.
Globes were often exchanged as gifts among important rulers, since they
signified command of the world, but were also suitably stately for
presentation to powerful figures.
The variety of uses to which globes could be turned is illustrated by the case
of a globe made by Gerard Mercator, a Flemish cartographer who trained under
Frisius. Mercator included rhumb lines on his globe of 1541, which meant that
the globe could have been of some use in navigational instruction. However,
Mercator made the globe for Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, an important figure
in the privy council of Emperor Charles V. De Granvelle would have been
attracted by the possibility of possessing the world symbolically by
possessing the globe, and the courtly setting suggests that the beauty and
grandeur of the globe would have been as important as its utility.
Globes retained their decorative function in the 17th century, and some
innovative designs were produced that promoted the gentlemanly use of globes
as accessories or furniture items. Pocket globes were first produced in
England by Joseph Moxon (1627-1691) in 1673, and gentlemen might well have
used these miniature instruments as status symbols. Moxon also collaborated
with Roger Palmer XR to make the 'English Globe' in 1679, which was best used
in the garden. Indeed, the fact that the 'English globe' could not be rotated
on its stand meant that it could only be used for latitudes matching that of
the south of England and would have been useless on sea voyages. Pocket globes
and instruments such as the 'English globe' meant that makers could promote
globes among new audiences.
73, Scott kf5jrv
KF5JRV @ KF5JRV.#NWAR.AR.USA.NA
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