Section Two: The World Divided

This double-hemisphere map of the world is embellished with twenty-six decorative scenes, including scientific projections of the Celestial skies and contemporary astronomical theories. Fourteen of the small circular cartouches feature astronomical views, while the other twelve depict various global views, including those of the poles and an armillary sphere. The border also depicts winds and climates with a panoramic illustration of tempests, earthquakes, tides, and vortices, along with a textual commentary on all of these natural phenomena.

The geography of the map is rich in detail, including most of the coast of Australia, the western coast of New Zealand, and the routes and discoveries of explorers Magellan, Dampier, Tasman, Gaetani, and Chaumont.

Advances in geographical knowledge are reflected in this map in the rejoining of California to the North American mainland and in the emerging outlines of Australia. Two putti (winged cherubic infants) support the banner title, and numerous ornamental cherubic windheads are responsible for chaotic winds, in contrast to their early Renaissance function of indicating specific wind directions. Celestial hemispheres are present, but the emphasis of the decorative elements is clearly on natural phenomena. Climatic zones are indicated around the circumference of the hemispheres, and prevailing marine winds are shown. The sun, moon, and stars, appropriately colored, occupy the upper corners. Diagrams surrounding the terrestrial hemispheres depict the relationships of sun and earth in summer and winter. All types of natural phenomena are graphically illustrated, including rain, snow, strong winds, lightning, a rainbow, a whirl­pool, waterspouts, the ebb and flow of the tides, a flood, an earthquake, and the eruption of Mount Etna.

Dedicated to Emperor Leopold I of the Holy Roman Empire this map reflects the way in which 17th-century cartography was enlisted to serve political ends. While the middle sphere of the earth covers the eagle’s body, centered on the Holy Roman Empire, the entire world is embraced by the eagle’s talons, suggesting the wide extent of the Holy Roman Empire to the east and west and alluding to ongoing wars with France and the Ottoman Empire.

The map was originally produced at the behest of astronomer Johannes Kepler to reflect his new calculations of longitude and latitude based on planetary observation. The central meridian runs through the Danish island that was home to the 16th-century observatory of Kepler’s mentor, the astronomer Tycho Brahe. Both Brahe and Kepler received successive appointments as the royal mathematician and astronomer of the Holy Roman Empire.

Coronelli’s maps of the eastern and western hemispheres show the new discoveries made by Abel Tasman in Australia and New Zealand and depict California as an island. Placed along the eastern coast of Asia is a representation of the mythical land bridge, Terra di Iesso, which was thought to link Asia to Alaska. The decorative borders include co-ordinates and descriptions of signs of the zodiac from Coronelli’s Atlante Veneto. 

This is a 19th-century copy of Ferdinand Verbiest’s hand-colored woodblock map, which was first published at Peking in 1674. A derived edition was published in Canton in 1856, and this Korean edition was then printed in Seoul by order of the King of Korea in 1860.

Verbiest was one of a handful of Jesuits employed at the Chinese court in the 17th and 18th centuries, helping to introduce ideas of Western science to China. This map was one of a series of maps produced by the Jesuits at the Court in Peking, beginning with Matteo Ricci’s two woodcut maps of 1584 and 1602. Verbiest’s map consists of two hemispheres, each with text containing information on the size, climate, land-forms, customs, and history of various parts of the world, as well as details of natural phenomena such as eclipses and earthquakes.