Epact Scientific Instruments of Medieval and Renaissance Europe

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Celestial Globe
Signed by Mario Cartaro
Dated 1577; Rome
Wood; 156 mm in diameter

This is one of the rare printed globes produced in Italy during the 16th century. The globe is mounted on a base of gilded wood. The horizon and meridian are made of wood, covered in coloured paper, and are graduated. The names of the principal eight winds, depicted by puffing heads, are given on the horizon. A small disc of coloured card is pivoted to the North pole, above the meridian. It is divided into 24 hours and equipped with a metal needle.

The sphere is made of solid wood, covered with 12 bands divided in half by the line of the ecliptic. The vertices of the 24 sectors converge at the poles. In addition to the ecliptic, the circles of the equator, the tropics, the two polar circles and the two colures of the solstices are shown. The ecliptic and the equator are divided into degrees marked alternately in red and yellow. A table indicates the six magnitudes of the stars. The sky is coloured blue. The constellations are of a yellow-orange colour. In the southern part of the globe is the inscription 'Marius Cartarus Viterbensis Autor incidebat Romae cu priv. 1577'.

The globe belonged to the material from the Medicean collection that passed on to the Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale founded by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo di Lorena and inaugurated in 1775. It is registered in the 'Inventario del reale Gabinetto' of 1776.

See M. Fiorini, Sfere terrestri e celesti di autore italiano oppure fatte o conservate in Italia (Roma, 1899), pp. 189-90; M. Miniati, Museo di Storia della scienza: Catalago (Florence, 1991), p. 42.

Mara Miniati

Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Firenze
Inventory no. 123

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