1706 – V Coronelli

This exceedingly rare map of the island published in 1706/09 in Naples by Vincenzo Maria Coronelli a Franciscan Friar and the instigator and founder of the world’s first Geographical Society.

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718), an eminent Italian mapmaker, was noted for his globes and atlases. Vincenzo, a tailor’s son, apprenticed to a xylographer at an early age. A Franciscan monastic novice at fifteen. The first of 140 books he wrote was published at sixteen. The organisation schooled him in Venice and Rome due of his intelligence. He studied astronomy and religion for his PhD. By the late 1670s, he was studying geography and commissioned to make globes for the Duke of Parma. The globes were five feet across. The Parma globes made Coronelli Duke theologian and earned him a larger commission from Louis XIV of France. Coronelli spent two years in Paris building the King’s 12.5-foot-diameter, 2-ton globes.

Coronelli travelled Europe manufacturing globes for the ultra-elite after his work for the French King became popular. In 1705, he returned to Venice. He formed the first geographical institution, the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti, and became Cosmographer of Venice. He died 1718.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincenzo_Coronelli