TEFAF 2025 Scientific Instruments by Daniel Crouch Rare Books

Daniel Crouch Rare Books Ltd 4 Bury Street, St James’s London SW1Y 6AB

+44 (0)20 7042 0240 info@crouchrarebooks.com crouchrarebooks.com

Catalogue edited by Daniel Crouch, Iona Fielding, Rose Grossel, Kate Hunter, Ellida Minelli, Mia Rocquemore, Nick Trimming and Arnie Anonuevo

Design by Ivone Chao and Nicky Valsamakis

Photography by Louie Fasciolo and Marco Maschiao

Cover: item 21

Terms and conditions: The condition of all books has been described. Each item may be assumed to be in good condition, unless otherwise stated. Dimensions are given height by width. All prices are net and do not include postage and packing. Invoices will be rendered in £ sterling. The title of goods does not pass to the purchaser until the invoice is paid in full.

Daniel Crouch Rare Books New York LLC PO Box 329 Larchmont NY 10538-2945, USA

+1 (212) 602 1779 info@crouchrarebooks.com crouchrarebooks.com

TEFAF - Maastricht 2025

Catalogue II - scientific instruments

PLANCIUS, Petrus

In hac coelestis Sphaera stelle Affixae majore. De integro addidi: quae omnia secundum Astronomorum Principis Thyconis Brahe... observationem verae suae Longitudini, ac Latitudin.

Publication Petrus Plancius, 1625.

Description Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved gores, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, with metal pins, supported by a wooden structure of four arms with a circular band with partially applied graduated paper, set into a modern wooden base.

Dimensions Diameter: 245mm (9.75 inches).

References van der Krogt KEE I; Science Museum Group 1986-427; for reference see Stevenson vol. II, pp.46-50.

€90,000

Biography

Petrus Plancius (1552-1662), a theologian and geographer, was one of the most influential cartographers of his day. He was forced to flee to Amsterdam in 1585, for fear of persecution as a Protestant minister. There he began his cartographical career, studying Portuguese charts and becoming friends with the explorer Henry Hudson. He issued his impressive world map in two hemispheres entitled ‘Nova et exacta terrarum orbis tabula geographica ac hydrographica’ in 1592, which likely influenced both Blaeu and Hondius in the preparation of their masterpieces published in 1605 and 1611, respectively.

In addition to his world map, Plancius turned his eyes to the skies. In 1589, he collaborated with the Amsterdam cartographer Jacob Floris van Langren on a 325mm (12.75 inches) celestial globe incorporating the limited information available about southern celestial features, which included Crux (the southern cross), Triangulum Australe (the southern triangle) and the Magellanic Clouds (Nubecula Major and Minor).

On a quest to expand knowledge of the southern hemisphere, Plancius commissioned Pieter Keyser, to record as many southern stars as possible on his voyage to the Indies in 1595. Although Keyser died at sea in 1596 before his return, he was able to record about 130 stars alongside his colleague Frederick de Houtman, and the records reached Plancius when the surviving voyagers returned. Plancius took these new discoveries and divided the stars into 12 new southern constellations, which mostly referred to animals and subjects described in natural history books and travellers’ journals of his day. The constellations are: Apis the Bee (later changed to Musca by Lacaille), Apus the Bird of Paradise, Chamaeleon, Dorado the Goldfish (or Swordfish), Grus the Crane, Hydrus the Small Water Snake, Indus the Indian, Pavo the Peacock, Phoenix, Triangulum Australe the Southern Triangle, Tucana the Toucan and Volans the Flying Fish.

Plancius plotted these southern constellations on a 350mm celestial globe in late 1597 (or early 1598) in collaboration with the Amsterdam cartographer Jodocus Hondius the Elder. No copies of this globe survive, but in 1602 Blaeu produced a copy of the globe, now in the Maritime Museum.

These constellations, together with the constellation Columba that Plancius included on his 1592 map of the world, were then incorporated by Johann Bayer in his sky atlas of 1603, the ‘Uranometria’.

Plancius created another globe in 1612-1614, published in co-operation of Pieter van den Keere with updated celestial cartography. The celestial globe is inscribed with the following: “In hac coelesti sphaera stellae affixae majore quam hactenus numero ac accuratiore industria delineantur. Novos Asterismos in philomathēom gratiam de integro addidi: quae omnia secundum Astronomorum Principis Tychonis

Brahe, ac meam observationem verae suae Longitudinis ac Latitudinis ad annum Christi 1615 restitui. Petrus Plancius” (translation: “In this celestial sphere the fixed stars to a greater number than previously and with more exactness are depicted. I have added for the use of the student some entirely new star readings according to the prince of astronomers Tycho Brahe, and also my own observations of their true latitude and longitude adapting these to the year of Christ 1615. Peter Plancius”). Plancius includes a portrait of Tycho Brahe in the southern hemisphere. On this updated globe, Plancius introduced the following eight constellations: Apis the Bee, Camelopardalis the Giraffe (often interpreted as a Camel), Cancer Minor the Small Crab, Euphrates Fluvius et Tigris Fluvius the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris, Gallus the Cock, Jordanis Fluvius the River Jordan, Monoceros the Unicorn and Sagitta Australis the Southern Arrow. Of the latter constellations, only Camelopardalis and Monoceros are still found on modern star charts, and recognized by the International Astroninomial Union (IAU).

Astronomy

The names of the constellations are given in Latin along with alternative names, some in Greek. The 48 Ptolemaic constellations appear along with Antonious, Coma Berenices, Cruz (“Cruzero Hispanis, at Ptolomeo Pedes Centauri”), and Columba (“Hemame. Columba Noachi”). The 12 constellations of Plancius appear as well as a number of contellations that appear on the globe for the first time: “Apes”, “Gyraffa Ca-melopardalis”, “Monoceros, Callus”, “Cancer minor”, “Jordanis fluv:”, “Sagitta Aust:” and “Euphrates fluv en Tigris flu”. The magnitude chart is drawn and labelled “Magnitudo Stellarum”. One nova is shown and is labelled with the following notation: “Stella mirabilis quae insolito prae alijs fulgore a[nn]o 1571 per an[num] et tri-entem appa-ruit” (translation: “The wondrous star, which shone with an uncommon brightness compared to the others in the year 1571 for one and one-third years”.

A portrait of Tycho Brahe appears below the figure of Cetus.

The

MOXON, Joseph [Pocket Globe].

Publication

Londini sumptibus J. Moxon [c.1680].

Description

Globe made up of twelve hand-coloured engraved gores and two polar calottes with pinholes at the poles over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case decorated in blind, with silver hinge, hooks and eyes, upper lid lined with two sets of twelve hand-coloured engraved celestial half-gores and two polar calottes laid to the celestial poles, with a similar cartouche to the terrestrial, heightened in gold, small worm trace in southern hemisphere celestial calotte, unvarnished.

Dimensions

Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inches).

2 - 9

Sold as a collection €600,000

Biography

Although born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, Moxon accompanied his Puritan(ical) father, James, to first Delft in 1636, and then Rotterdam in 1638 where he printed Bibles in English. By September 1646, Joseph and his brother James were back in London and had established themselves as printers of books of interest to Puritans – with one exception, A Book of Drawing, Limning, Washing or Colouring of Mapps and Prints (1647), for the map seller Thomas Jenner.

This commission inspired Joseph to leave his brother with the publishing business to pursue an interest in globe and map-making. In Amsterdam in 1652, he commissioned a set of copper-engraved globe-gores, which he used to print 15-inch celestial and terrestrial globes. At the “Sign of Atlas”, from various addresses in London, until 1686, he issued maps, charts, globes, mathematical instruments in paper, and scientific books.

In 1662, Moxon was appointed hydrographer to Charles II “for the making of Globes, Maps and Sea-Platts”, and in 1678 he became the first tradesman to be elected to the Royal Society.

Moxon developed a lifelong interest in craft of printing, and his ‘Proves of Several Sorts of Letters Cast by Joseph Moxon’ (1669), is the first complete English type specimen known. His ‘Mechanick Exercises: … Applied to the Art of Printing’, published in twenty-four numbers in 1683–4, “details all aspects of printing techniques of his day, capturing for posterity the unrecorded tacit craft skills. The value of the text is not that it explains technical innovation—there is none—but it is the precise record of the printing trade seen through the eyes of a practitioner” (Bryden for DNB).

From 1686 until his death, Moxon lived with his son, James, a map engraver who continued to sell his father’s globes, instruments, and books which included a third and enlarged edition of his father’s ‘Mathematical Dictionary’ (1700), the first English-language dictionary devoted to the terminology of mathematics.

Literature

Bryden, D.J., “The Instrument-maker and the Printer: Paper Instruments made in Seventeenth Century London”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 55 (Dec.1997)

--, “Capital in the London Publishing Trade: James Moxon’s Stock Disposal of 1698, a ‘Mathematical Lottery’, The Library, sixth series, vol.XIX, no.4, (Dec.1997)

--, “Early Printed Ephemera of London Instrument Makers: Trade Catalogues”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 64 (Mar.2000)

Christie’s South Kensington, Scientific and Medical Instruments including barometers (Sale catalogue 1221, 18 July 1985, Lot 34)

--, Scientific, Medical and Engineering Works of Art and Natural History (Sale catalogue 5650, 19 October 2005, Lot 140)

Dekker, E., Globes At Greenwich (Oxford, 1999)

Dekker, E., and van der Krogt, P., Globes From The Western World (London, 1993)

Hausmann, T., “Ein Taschenglobus König Friedrichs I in Pruessen”, Berlinermuseen, N.F. XXII (1972)

van der Krogt, “Globes, Made Portable for the Pocket”, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 7 (1985)

Middleton, A., “Market Place Autumn 2003” in Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 78 (Sept.2003)

Moxon, J., A Tutor to Astronomy and Geography, or an easie and speedy way to know the use of both the Globes, Celestial and Terrestrial (London, 1659)

Stevenson, E.L., Terrestrial and Celestial Globes (New Haven, 1921)

Wallis, H.M., “Geographie is Better than Divinitie: Maps, Globes and Geography in the Day of Samuel Pepys” in The Compleat Plattmaker, N.J.W. Thrower, ed. (UCLA, 1978)

--, and Dunn, R., British Globes up to 1850: a Provisional Inventory (London, 1999).

Geography

The equatorial is coloured yellow and graduated 1-360° with 1° subdivisions, the prime meridian running through the Azores, coloured yellow and graduated 90°-0-90°, the ecliptic ungraduated, the polar and tropic circles uncoloured, the oceans with a wind rose on the equatorial at 270° and the tracks of Drake and Cavendish marked, the continents with nation states outlined in colour, showing country names, rivers and forests and mountains in pictorial relief, California shown as an island, Canada with no northern or western coastline, Australia with no eastern coastline and partial southern coastline, New Guinea with no eastern coastline, New Zealand shown as a short stretch of coastline.

Astronomy

Graduated ecliptic, equatorial and equinoctial colure, the constellations depicted by mythical beasts and figures and the stars shown to seven orders of magnitude.

A geocentric armillary

[Anonymous]

[Armillary Sphere in Case].

Publication [Paris, c.1700].

Description

Armillary sphere, pasteboard, covered with hand-coloured paper, solstice, polar, tropic, and equinox colures, and celestial equator with graduations on the outer side with divisions for months and houses of the zodiac, with a full stamped pasteboard meridian circle showing graduations in degrees, hour and geographical circles at each pole. The main axis with a miniature globe, diameter ¾ inch (17mm), made up of 12 hand-coloured engraved gores, with two card planets set on brass arms set around. The armillary sphere set in a horizon bar and mounted in its original turned fruitwood case, some cracks in the base neatly repaired.

Dimensions Diameter: 3 inches (75mm).

The Ptolemaic armillary sphere shows the cosmos with the earth at its centre. The complex device is made of moving circles: a meridian surmounted by an hour circle with metal pointer and an internal ring structure of polar circles, tropics and equator, joined by an equinoctial and a solstitial colure and surrounded by a planar zodiac band. These elements surround a rotating terrestrial globe, and a revolving sun and moon of flat paste-board discs, horizon band with calendar and zodiac. The four quadrant supporting the horizon ring give the latitude and longitude of major cities throughout the world.

[HOMANN, Johann Baptist]

Globus terrestris juxta observationes Parisienses Regia Academiae Scientiarum constructus.

Publication Nuremberg, Johann Baptist Homann, [c.1702-1715].

Description

Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, over two wooden concave hemispheres, nested paste-board armillary sphere within, all housed within original black morocco over paste-board clamshell case, decorated with fine gilt daisy flower tools and fillets, with hook and eye, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores. Minor water staining in the southern hemisphere, slight discolouration where two hemispheres meet. In addition to the terrestrial and celestial globe, this pocket globe features a rare armillary sphere, which is revealed by opening the hollow wooden terrestrial globe.

Dimensions

Diameter: 64mm (2.5 inches).

Literature

Sumira 22; Dekker and van der Krogt, pl.20.

Homann’s

Biography

Johann Baptist Homann (1664-1724) was a German geographer and cartographer. He was educated as a Jesuit and destined for an ecclesiastical career, but converted to Protestantism and then worked as a notary in Nuremberg. He founded a publishing business there in 1702, and published his first atlas in 1707, becoming a member of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin in the same year. He collaborated with Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr on his book ‘Kosmotheoros’, which represented the solar system based on the Copernican system laid down by Christiaan Huygesn.

Homann was appointed Imperial Geographer to Charles VI in 1715, and produced his great work the following year, ‘Grosser Atlas uber die ganze Welt’. Homann was well placed to take advantage of the decline of Dutch supremacy in cartographic publishing, and he became the most important map and atlas producer in Germany. After his death, the company was continued by his son Johann Christoph. When Johann Christoph died in 1730, the company continued under the name of Homann Heirs until 1848.

Geography

Homann is only known to have produced one pocket globe, this being the later state which opens to reveal a pasteboard armillary within. The globe features cartography plotted from recent observations of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris. In addition to his collaboration with Doppelmayr, Homman published the gores of George Christoph Eimmart’s globes in his atlases, which would have provided additional cartographic information. The equator is graduated and shows ecliptic and prime meridian. None of the Antarctic continent appears, nor is there a coast to northwestern Canada - but it has been hand-outlined in green - or southeastern Australia. “New Zeeland” and “Diemans Land” are shown only in part, and California is shown as an island.

Astronomy

The celestial cartography appears on the inside of the clamshell case is graduated in degrees, the ecliptic is graduated in days of the houses of the Zodiac with sigils and the constellations are brightly coloured and depicted by mythical beasts and figures and some objects, with names in Latin. A cartouche gives the stars and nebulae to six orders of magnitude. Two cartouches read Opera IO. B. HOMANNI S.C.M. Geographi

Norinbergae and GLOBUS COELESTIS juxta Observationes

Parisienses exhibitus.

Armillary sphere

The miniature armillary sphere, with graduated meridian and three latitudinal bands, contains a miniature sun at its centre. The central band depicts the twelve zodiac house names and animal symbols in bright hand-painted colours.

Rare. Only one institutional example is known: that in the British Library, although the BL example exhibits a different form of the armillary sphere. We are aware of two further examples in private collections.

[HOMANN, Johann Baptist]

Globus terrestris. juxta observationes Parisienses Regia Academia Scientiarum constructus.

Publication Nuremberg, Johann Baptiste Homann, [c.1702-1715].

Description Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, housed within original brass case, with gilded edges to both hemispheres, with hook and eye, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores. Short split to globe in the southern hemisphere with early repair.

Dimensions Diameter: 64mm (2.5 inches).

Literature Sumira 22; Dekker and van der Krogt, pl.20.

Biography

Homann was appointed Imperial Geographer to Charles VI in 1715, and produced his great work the following year, ‘Grosser Atlas uber die ganze Welt’. Homann was well-placed to take advantage of the decline of Dutch supremacy in cartographic publishing, and he became the most important map and atlas producer in Germany. After his death, the company was continued by his son Johann Christoph. When Johann Christoph died in 1730, the company continued under the name of Homann Heirs until 1848.

Geography

The earliest state, previously unrecorded, of Homann’s only known pocket globe, lacking the title of Imperial Geography awarded in 1715. It differs from the later states only in that does not open to reveal a pasteboard armillary within, an innovation Homann would later add. The globe features cartography plotted from recent observations of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris. In addition to his collaboration with Doppelmayr, Homman published the gores of George Christoph Eimmart’s globes in his atlases, which would have provided additional cartographic information. The equator is graduated and shows ecliptic and prime meridian. None of the Antarctic continent appears, nor is there a coast to northwestern Canada, or southeastern Australia. “New Zeeland” and “Diemans Land” are shown only in part, and California is shown as an island.

Astronomy

The celestial cartography appears on the inside of the brass case and is graduated in degrees, the ecliptic is graduated in days of the houses of the Zodiac, with sigils, and the constellations are brightly coloured and depicted by mythical beasts and figures and some objects, with names in Latin. A cartouche gives the stars and nebulae to six orders of magnitude. Two cartouches read Opera IO. B. HOMANNI S.C.M. Geographi

Norinbergae and GLOBUS COELESTIS juxta Observationes

Parisienses exhibitus.

Rarity

An apparently unique configuration of the first state (of three) of Homann’s pocket globe.

DESNOS, Louis-Charles [Globe terrestre].

Publication

se Fait et vend chez Desnos rue St Jacques St Severin, a Paris, 1753.

Description

Dimensions

Diameter: 79mm (3.25 inches).

A globe of two halves…

Biography

Louis Charles Desnos (1725- 18 April 1805) lived and worked in Paris, he was appointed Royal Globemaker to Charles VII, King of Denmark. This may have had something to do with his acquiring the inventory of Jacques Hardy, whose son Nicolas’s widow he married. However, he did not stop at globes: Desnos commissioned and sold maps, atlases, prints, screens, writing materials, and books. He acquired inventory from the Jaillot family and Nicolas de Fer, and worked extensively with other cartographers, particularly with Giovanni Rizzi-Zannoni, Claude Buy de Mornas, and Louis Brion de la Tour; sometimes fairly, sometimes in a rather underhand way.

There is no doubt that Desnos was a sharp businessman, with an eye for opportunity. As early as 1750, Desnos announced plans to publish a fifteen-map historical geography of France illustrated with maps by Antonio Rizzi-Zannoni, which did not come to fruition, even though he seems to have later claimed that it had. If that had been true, then it would have been the earliest such atlas of France.

In 1761, Desnos entered into a contract with Claude Buy de Mornas, to produce an ‘Atlas méthodique et élémentaire de Géographie et d’Histoire’ (1761). Desnos’s investment in the atlas… was three times the amount of Mornas’s. However, when Mornas was slow to provide the promised text for the work, Desnos pursued him for damages against having jeopardized the success of the venture and Desnos’s investment.

For his next big venture, Desnos decided to cut a few corners, and in 1763, the shoe was on the other foot, when Jean Lattre pursued him for allegedly plagiarizing his ‘Atlas maritime des Cotes de France’ (1762), reissuing it with maps by Rizzi-Zannoni. Desnos, at this point, was unphased by controversy, and compounded insult with injury by printing a version of Mme. Lattre’s map, ‘Carte Helio-Seleno-Geographique’,… (1762), showing the visibility of a solar eclipse, due to occur on the April 1, 1764, from different places in Europe. The Gendarmerie was summoned and seized an example of the Lattres’ map on Desnos’s premises. Desnos blamed Rizzi-Zannoni for everything, which was easy because RizziZannoni had in fact worked for and been paid for map designs by Lattre, without ever completing them. On the assumption that all publicity was good publicity, Desnos used the controversy to advertise his version of the map, claiming in the Journal de Trevoux, that Lattre’s accusations were defamatory, and offering his version of the map at less than half Lattre’s price.

Nevertheless, Desnos went some way to learning his lesson, and subsequent atlases acknowledged, as well as capitalized, on the success of others, and were advertised as being useful for understanding well-known, best-selling histories.

Geography

The globe’s geography stands at the junction between accurate mapmaking and what became known as “French theoretical cartography” (a catch-all to bury many geographical sins!). In the southern hemisphere Desnos is remarkably honest and shows incomplete coastlines for Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. In the northern hemisphere, however, he plays fast and loose with Arctic exploration, and deploys a mostly fictitious coastline for both the Russian and American Arctic, as well as clear northeastern and northwestern passages.

Showing the results of Bering’s expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula

HILL,

Nathaniel

A New Terrestrial Globe by Nath Hill 1754.

Publication [London], Nath. Hill, 1754 [but c.1755 or later].

Description

Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, clipped at 60 degrees latitude, with two polar calottes, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores, with two calottes, varnished.

Dimensions

Diameter: 76mm (3 inches).

Literature

For Hill’s 1754 pocket globe see Dahl and Gauvin, pp.93-95 (Stewart Museum 1979.28.2); for reference see Dekker, pp.355-357; van der Krogt, Hil 1 and Hil 4; Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.318-319.

Biography

Nathaniel Hill (fl.1746-1768) was a surveyor, mathematician and instrument maker based in London. He started his career as an apprentice globemaker to Richard Cushee, and he later took on Cushee’s nephew, Leonard, as his apprentice. His shop was at the Globe and the Sun in Chancery Lane, and his trade card advertised “New and Correct Globes of 3, 9, 12 and 15 inches”. Hill’s most popular items were the three and nine-inch globes, which he published either as pocket globes, mounted on a stand or for orreries. After Hill’s death, his business was continued by Thomas Bateman, who took on John Newton and William Palmer as apprentices.

Geography

This pocket globe by Hill shows the rapid changes in European knowledge of the world. Although it bears the same date as another globe he published in 1754, it shows some significant revisions, the most obvious of which is the addition of trade winds. In Asia, the Caspian Sea has been reduced in width to reflect the findings of the Russian nautical surveyor, Feodor Soimonov, who thoroughly surveyed the sea for the first time between 1719 and 1727, and published his findings in 1731. The most significant development is the redrawing of eastern Russia, influenced by Vitus Bering’s second expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula. Bering spent ten years (1733-1743) exploring northern Russia, mapping the Arctic coast of Siberia, and reaching Alaska in North America. Bering died of scurvy during the voyage, and an island off the Kamchatka Peninsula was eventually named in his honour. Stephan Krasheninnikov published the first detailed description of the peninsula, ‘An Account of the Land of Kamchatka’ in 1755, which is possibly where Hill acquired the new information. The non-existent “Long River” in America is drawn after the account of Louis Armand, Baron de Lahontan, a French explorer who travelled around the Mississippi valley and wrote of a “Rivière Longue” in the area. Hill has also included the “St[rait] of Annian”, a semi-mythical body of water which appeared on European maps from the early sixteenth century, separating America and Asia. Hill shows it unconnected to any land because of uncertainties about the shape of the coast. Only the north coast of Australia (marked as “New Holland”) and a tiny section of “New Zeeland” appear, after the discoveries of Abel Tasman. The Antipodes would not be properly explored until the expeditions of James Cook, over a decade after this globe was made.

Astronomy

The celestial gores, lining the case, are geocentric in orientation and, in a departure from most previous pocket globes, are concave, thus depicting the constellations as seen from earth. Previous pocket globes, most notably John Senex’s pocket globe of 1730, simply used gores intended for celestial globes, thus rendering the night sky in reverse when pasted to the inside of the case. The difference is most noticeable in the orientation of Ursa Major, with the bear facing in the other direction.

CARY, John and CARY, William

Cary’s Pocket Globe agreeable to the latest discoveries.

Publication London, Published by J. & W. Cary, Stand, April, 1791.

Description

Globe, papier mâché, covered with plaster coating and 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, varnished, housed in original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with brass hooks and eyes, lined on one half with a map entitled “The World as it was known in Cæsar’s time agreable to D’Anville”, and on the other half with “A Table of Latitudes and Longitudes of Places not given on this Globe”.

Dimensions Diameter: 76mm (3 inches).

Literature Dekker GLB0001 and GLB0066; van der Krogt Car 1; Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.129-133.

The legacy of Captain Cook

Biography

The Cary dynasty of globemakers was founded in the late-eighteenth century by John Cary (1755-1835). The son of a Wiltshire maltster, Cary was apprenticed to William Palmer and became freeman in 1778. The first globes by Cary were advertised in the ‘Traveller’s Companion’ in January 1791. The advertisement mentions that his globes were made from “entire new plates”. It was common for publishers to buy or inherit copper plates for gores and alter them, rather than go to the expense of creating new ones. The address of the company at this time was 181 the Strand, and it was known as J & W Cary, to recognise the contribution of John’s brother William (1759-1825). Both brothers produced a number of instruments and maps aside from their globes and in all projects other than their globes, the brothers operated as separate business entities. William himself was primarily an optician and nautical instrument maker, after serving as apprentice to Jesse Ramsden, and had his own premises further down the Strand at Nos. 272 and 182.

Geography

In his advert Cary was keen to stress that his pocket globe contained “the new Discoveries, & the Tracks of the different Circumnavigators”. All three of Captain James Cook’s voyages are marked. The first, from 1768-71 when he commanded the HMS ‘Endeavour’, reached Australia and circumnavigated New Zealand. He discovered the Endeavour Strait (marked on the globe) in 1770 between the Australian mainland and Prince of Wales Island and named it after his ship. Botany Bay also appears, named for the specimens found there by Sir Joseph Banks, the naturalist who sailed with Cook. The second voyage, from 1772-75 when he commanded the HMS ‘Resolution’, reached the Arctic Circle. His third and final voyage from 1776-79, with HMS ‘Resolution’ and ‘Discovery’, made Cook the first European to have formal contact with the Hawaiian islands in 1778; it was also where he died after a confrontation with natives, commemorated with the inscription ‘Owhyee (Hawaii) where Cook was killed’. The globe also shows the return journey of Cook’s expedition under the command of John Gore and Captain James King.

The extent of British exploration in the Pacific area is shown by the plethora of British place names. These include Duke of York Islands in Papua New Guinea, named after Prince Edward, younger brother of George III, by Philip Carteret, who circumnavigated the world in 1766-69; and Palmerston Island, an atoll named after Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston (then Lord of the Admiralty).

The globe also marks other contemporary explorations. Cary was the first to use information derived from Alexander Mackenzie’s 1789 explorations in north-western Canada, showing “Mackenzie’s R[iver]” before Mackenzie’s own maps were published in 1801. Tasmania is still marked “Diemensland” and appears as a peninsula. The existence of the Bering Strait had now been confirmed, and it appears between America and Asia. Finally, the globe shows the 1773 Arctic expedition of Constantine Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave (with a young Horatio Nelson on board), where Phipps was the first European to describe the polar bear as a distinct species.

NEWTON, John

Newton’s New & Improved Terrestrial Pocket Globe. [WITH MERIDIAN RING].

Publication

London, Newton, Son & Berry, No. 66 Chancery Lane, [c.1817].

Description Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, brass meridian ring, which sits in a engraved hand-coloured and varnished horizon ring, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, upper lid lined with 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores, calotte, varnished.

Dimensions Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inches).

Literature Dekker GLB00588; van der Krogt New 1; Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.487-490.

Biography

John Newton (1759-1844) was trained by Thomas Bateman (fl.1754-81), who had previously been apprenticed to Nathaniel Hill. Newton’s first globe was a revised edition of Hill’s 1754 pocket globe, which he published in 1783 in association with William Palmer. The partnership dissolved shortly after, and Newton continued to publish the pocket globe under his own name. John’s second son William Newton (1786-1861) joined the firm between 1814-1816, which traded under the name J. & W. Newton. In the same year the firm produced a new series of globes, including a new pocket globe.

By the 1830s the firm was also active as a patent agent, and was joined by Miles Berry, a civil engineer and patent agent, after which the firm was known as Newton, Berry & Son. In 1842, William’s eldest son, William Edward Newton (1818-1879), joined the business, followed by his brother Alfred Vincent Newton (1821-1900). The firm became known as W. Newton & Son, or once again, on the death of William, as simply Newton & Son from 1861 until about 1883. Perhaps the greatest triumph for the Newton family was the Great Exhibition of 1851, where, aside from the globes they exhibited from one to 25 inches in diameter, they were awarded a prize medal for a manuscript terrestrial globe of six feet in diameter.

Geography

In a departure from pocket globes produced in the eighteenth century Newton has mounted the present globe in a graduated brass meridian ring. The ring fits into two slots in the paper horizon ring which is pasted on to the lower part of the case. This enables the globe to be positioned at an angle, mimicking the earth’s axial tilt.

In Australia, the “G[ulf] of St Vincent” appears. Earlier versions of the globe show the southeastern coast labelled “French disc.”, after the scientific expedition led by Nicolas Baudin (1800-1803). Baudin’s expedition was sent by Napoleon to complete the charting of Australia, and in particular to examine the Australian south coast in order to find a strait which supposedly divided the Australian landmass in half. Louis Claude de Saulses de Freycinet served as cartographer. The British explorer Captain Matthew Flinders was exploring the area at the same time, and the expeditions met each other in the consequently named “Encounter Bay”. Although Flinders completed the task before Baudin, he was captured and imprisoned for six years at Mauritius on his voyage home, along with his charts and manuscripts. This allowed the French explorers to print their account of the new discoveries before Flinders, and for Freycinet to produce the first complete chart of the Australian continent. The maps and charts prepared by Freycinet entirely ignored the discoveries of Grant and Flinders and depict the whole of the newly discovered coast of Melbourne to the border of Western Australia as the ‘Terre Napoleon’.

However, by the time of the present globe’s production, this had been corrected to show Flinders’ discoveries.

In North America, several cities are named on the east coast: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chesapeake, and Charlestown. The northwest coast is labelled “Vancouver’s disc.”, after George Vancouver’s 1791-95 expedition. Further north Alaska is marked “Russian Settlements”. The Russian-American Company was formed in 1799, and set up a trading post in Alaska for the purpose of hunting sea otters for their fur. The United States would later acquire Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867. To the west of Alaska the Bering Straits are shown but not named.

To the southern Pacific is engraved a figure-of-eight known as an analemma: “An Improved Analemma shewing the sun’s declination & place in the zodiac for each day of inspection”. In the South Pacific Ocean additional information is provided - “NB. This improved Analemma is intended to supercede the necessity of the Ecliptic Line hitherto unnecessarily drawn upon the Terrestrial Globe” - although Newton has failed to remove the line of the ecliptic that still surrounds the globe. On an example at the National Maritime Museum, dated 1816, the line of the ecliptic is not present.

Astronomy

Only the upper hemisphere is printed with designs depicting astronomical phenomena. To the rim is a zodiacal scale, with symbols of the signs of the zodiac. The rest of the hemisphere depicts the solar system, with the newly discovered Uranus named after its discoverer William Herschel, who had discovered the planet on 13th March, 1781. It was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity, and he became famous over night.

[HOMANN, Johann Baptist]

Globus terrestris juxta observationes Parisienses Regia Academiae Scientiarum constructus.

Publication Nuremberg, Johann Baptist Homann, [c.1702-1715].

Description Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, all housed within original black morocco over paste-board clamshell case, decorated with fine gilt foliate tools and fillets, with hook and eye, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores.

Dimensions Diameter: 64mm (2.5 inches).

References Sumira 22; Dekker and van der Krogt, pl.20.

€55,000

Homman’s rare pocket globe

The earliest state of Homann’s only known pocket globe

Biography

Geography

Homann is only known to have produced one pocket globe. Although the present example reflects an earlier issue than previously identified in that it does not include Homann’s title as Imperial Geographer, which he received in 1715. The globe features cartography plotted from recent observations of the Académie Royale des Sciences in Paris. In addition to his collaboration with Doppelmayr, Homman published the gores of George Christoph Eimmart’s globes in his atlases, which would have provided additional cartographic information. The equator is graduated and shows ecliptic and prime meridian. None of the Antarctic continent appears, nor is there a coast to northwestern Canada - but it has been hand-outlined in greenor southeastern Australia. “New Zeeland” and “Diemans Land” are shown only in part, and California is shown as an island.

Astronomy

HILL, Nathaniel

A New Terrestrial Globe by Nath Hill 1754.

Publication [London], Nath. Hill, 1754 [but c.1755 or later].

Description

Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, clipped at 65 degrees latitude, with polar calottes, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores, varnished. The terrestrial globe a bit toned.

Dimensions

Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inches).

References

For Hill’s 1754 pocket globe see Dahl and Gauvin, pp.93-95 (Stewart Museum 1979.28.2); for reference see Dekker, pp.355-357; van der Krogt, Hil 1 and Hil 4; Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.318-319.

€20,000

Showing the results of Bering’s expedition to the Kamchatka Peninsula

Biography

Nathaniel Hill (fl1746-1768) was a surveyor, mathematician and instrument maker based in London. He started his career as an apprentice globemaker to Richard Cushee, and he later took on Cushee’s nephew, Leonard, as his apprentice. His shop was at the Globe and the Sun in Chancery Lane, and his trade card advertised “New and Correct Globes of 3, 9, 12 and 15 inches”. Hill’s most popular items were the three and nine-inch globes, which he published either as pocket globes, mounted on a stand or for orreries. After Hill’s death, his business was continued by Thomas Bateman, who took on John Newton and William Palmer as apprentices.

Geography

Astronomy

“Ingénieur-Mécanicien pour les Globes et Sphères”

FORTIN, [Jean] and BUY DE MORNAS, M. [Claude]

A set of three: two globes and an armillary Globe terrestre sur le quel Les Principaux Points sont placez sur les dernieres

Observations de Mrs de l’Academie Royale des Sciences

Par M. Buy de Mornas Geographe du Roi et des Enfants de France, [and] Globe celeste, [and armillary].

Publication

Paris, Chez le Sr. Fortin, Ingenieur, Mecanicien du Roy pour les Globes et Spheres, rue de la Harpe 1768 [celestial globe dated 1770, armillary dated 1773].

Description

A pair of terrestrial and celestial globes, each with 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores over papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, paste-board meridian ring, wooden horizon ring, raised by four quadrant supports, mounted on an ebonized turned wood table stand. Together with an armillary sphere, containing globe with 12 hand-coloured engraved gores, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished wood, raised on four quadrant supports, with ebonised turned wood table stand.

Dimensions

Diameter: 220mm (8.75 inches).

€50,000

Biography

Jean Fortin (1750-1831) was a scientific instrument maker born in Picardy, France. Chiefly remembered for designing a barometer that ensured more accurate readings, he also produced celestial atlases, scales and was commissioned by the French royal family to make globes. He made terrestrial and celestial globes of 320 and 220mm (12 and 8.75 inches) diameter, as well as a terrestrial globe of 55mm (2.25 inches) to go into his armillary spheres.

Fortin operated in Paris, with a shop in the Rue de la Harpe, where he referred to himself as “Ingénieur-Mécanicien pour les Globes et Sphères”. He is also known for publishing the new celestial atlas of John Flamsteed (1646-1719) in 1762, which was highly influential as a source for celestial cartography throughout the rest of the century. His business was continued by his son Augustin, grandson Michel and great-grandson Augustin.

Geography

The prime meridian, which runs through the Canary Islands at Ferro, the equator, and the ecliptic are all graduated and labelled. The ecliptic includes the signs of the zodiac. Australia and New Zealand are drawn according to the discoveries of Abel Tasman; a dotted line marks a hypothetical northeast, east, and south coast of Australia. There are no tracks of voyages shown, but the lands seen by Quiros and David are marked. The two demi-meridian rings mark the latitude and longitude of the major cities of the world.

North America extends almost to the north pole, and is apparently attached to Asia in the west and Greenland in the esat. However, California is shown as a peninsula.

Astronomy

The equator is graduated and labelled “Cercle de L’Equateur” and “Cercle Equinoctial”. The ecliptic is graduated; it is labelled “Ligne Eclipt” and “la Zodiaque” and provided with the symbols of the signs of the zodiac. There are labels for the “Artique” along the north polar circle “the Tropique de Capricorn”, “the Tropique de Cander”, “the Pol. d’eclipt. Australle”, “the Colure des Aequinoxe” and “the Colure des Solstique”. There is a magnitude table which is labelled “Gr. et Figure des Etoilles”. The 48 Ptolemaic constellations are shown as well as the non-Ptolemaic constellations Antinous, La Chevelure de Berenice, La Croix, and La Colombe. The 12 southern constellations of Plancius are depicted.

[ANONYMOUS after MOLL, Herman]

A Correct Globe with the new Discoveries. [and] A Correct Globe with ye New Constelations of Dr. Halley &c.

Publication [London, c.1775].

Description Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, clipped at 70 degrees latitude, with two polar calottes, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores, clipped at 70 degrees declination, varnished.

Dimensions

Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inches).

References Dekker GLB0196; for Moll’s globe see Lamb, Collins and Schmidt 5.4 and Sumira 21; Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.456-458.

€11,000

Showing the track of Cook’s ‘Endeavour’ voyage

A pocket globe after Herman Moll.

Biography

Herman Moll (c.1654-1732) moved to London from Germany or the Low Countries, sometime before 1678. His career in London would span some 60 years and see him move from a jobbing engraver to a successful publisher of maps and atlases. He was part of the intellectual circle that gathered at Jonathan’s Coffee House, counting Robert Hooke, Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift amongst his acquaintance. Moll even provided a map for Defoe’s work ‘Robinson Crusoe’ showing the track of Crusoe’s supposed voyage, and is mentioned by Lemuel Gulliver in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.

This globe was formerly attributed to George Adams Snr, on the basis that it appeared in one of his instruments. However, it also appears in the instruments of several other publishers, which makes this unlikely. His stock was bought by Thomas and John Bowles, and Robert Sayer - it is possible that the copperplates for the globe gores were perpetuated by either of these publishers.

Geography

Moll’s 1710 pocket globe - the only one he ever produced - was influenced by the voyages of William Dampier, his friend and collaborator. Dampier (1651-1715), sometime pirate and explorer, was the first Englishman to explore Australia, and the first to circumnavigate the world three times. He published an account of his adventures in ‘A New Voyage Around the World’ in 1697. The maps in ‘New Voyage’ and another work, ‘A Voyage to New Holland’, were created by Moll. Moll’s globe contained the tracks of Dampier’s voyage, updated coastlines based on his discoveries, and records of trade winds after Dampier’s treatise on the subject. The present example updates Moll’s original with the latest discoveries. California appears correctly as a peninsula, rather than the island originally portrayed by Moll - conflicting reports from Spanish explorers of the region had given rise to confusion as to whether it was attached to the mainland or not. California’s status was confirmed after the explorations of Juan Bautista de Anza (1774-76). The tracks of Dampier’s voyage have been partially erased and overlaid with the track of the first voyage of Captain James Cook (incorrectly dated “Cook’s Track 1760”), and the geography of Australasia adjusted accordingly, including the labelling of Cook Strait. It also adds the label “North.n Ocean” to the North Pole, although this is a preference of the cartographer rather than any new information, as the area was still largely unexplored.

Astronomy

The ecliptic is graduated and provided with the signs of the zodiac. The polar circles and tropics are drawn but not named. A magnitude table (1-6) sits below Ursa Major. The 48 Ptolemaic constellations are marked, with four non-Ptolemaic constellations. Only five of the 12 southern Plancian constellations are named, and Scutum is not labelled among the Hevelian constellations.

LANE, [Thomas after Nicholas LANE]

[Pocket Globe] West. Bazaar, Soho Square London.

Publication London, Soho, [1808].

Description

Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, clipped at 70 degrees latitude, with two polar calottes, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, paste-over imprint to cartouche, varnished, housed in original black shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores.

Dimensions 70mm (2.75 inches).

References Dekker, pp.393-394; Sumira, 35 and 45; Worms and Baynton-Williams, p.451.

€14,500

An extremely rare pocket globe that preserves a tangible link to a working woman in early-nineteenth century London.

The globe is the work of Nicholas Lane (fl.1775-1783), whose business was particularly associated with pocket globes. First issued in 1779, the plates were updated in 1807 by Lane’s son, Thomas, who took over the business after his father’s death. Sold wholesale, often retailers would paste their own name and address over that of Lane in the cartouche – as the present example, with its imprint “West. Soho Bazaar, London”, reflects.

The Soho Bazaar

The Soho Bazaar was established in 1816, in what is now 4-6 Soho Square, by John Trotter, an army contractor who had amassed considerable wealth supplying the British Army and Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. It had as its aim to support the widows and daughters of army officers and other individuals in need, providing a safe space for single women to trade. On sale were a variety of products: jewellery, millinery, baskets, gloves, lace, potted plants, books – and, apparently, pocket globes. The “West” on the imprint of the present example is, most likely, the woman who sold the globe, making this an exceptionally unusual piece, in that it is a globe that records the name of a working-class woman.

The Geography

The present globe can be dated to 1808. It features some of the revisions made by Thomas Lane that appear on the 1809 globe and not on the 1807, as recorded by Sumira, but not all. Dimens Land (Tasmania) has been separated from New Holland (Australia), with Port Jackson (Sydney) added to the west coast of the mainland. Sharks’ Bay, “South C.”, the “Stony Mountains” (the Rockies), and the death of Captain Cook are all, however, absent.

Given that the Soho Bazaar did not open until 1816, this makes the globe at least eight years outdated by the time of its sale. The most likely explanation for this is that Lane sold “out-of-date” stock at a reduced price, making it affordable to a woman like the anonymous “West” who held stalls at the Bazaar.

Astronomy

The celestial gores, which were acquired by from Richard Cushee at some point in the mid-eighteenth century, are geocentric in orientation. The difference is most noticeable in the orientation of Ursa Major, with the bear facing the other direction. The deep green colour is characteristic of Lane’s globes.

MINSHULL, [George] [after LANE, Nicholas; ADAMS, Dudley and FERGUSON, James]

Minshull’s.

Publication

[London, c.1813].

Description

Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, clipped at 70 degrees latitude, with two polar calottes, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, paste-over imprint to cartouche, varnished, housed in original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores.

Dimensions

Diameter: 75mm (3 inches).

References Dekker, pp.393-394; Sumira 35 and 45; Worms and Baynton-Williams, p.451.

€13,500

A toymaker’s globe

Biography

George Minshull (fl.1800-1835) was a toymaker and carver. Although based in Birmingham, there was a “George Minshull & Son” registered in Hatton Garden in London in 1814, suggesting the globe was sold there. It was common for small cartographic items and scientific instruments to be sold alongside toys.

Though the globe bears Minshull’s name it is actually the work of Nicholas Lane (fl.1775-1783) whose business was particularly associated with pocket globes, and seemed to have sold globes wholesale, to retailers such as Linshull. Little is known about Lane’s output, but Dekker suggests that his three inch globes were produced from the earlier works of James Ferguson and Dudley Adams. When Dudley went bankrupt in about 1810, the copper plates appear to have come into the hands of the Lane firm, where the old cartouche was completely erased in favour of a new circular one. However, the name of the engraver, J. Mynde, was kept just below the cartouche. Later on, after 1820, Lane would erase Mynde’s name from the plates.

Lane not only produced globes under his own name but also sold them wholesale, as here: with Minshull’s name pasted over the title.

Geography

Australia is well delineated with “New South Wales” labelled along with “Botany Bay” and “Port Jackson” noted. The Bering Straits are named. India is labelled as “Hindoostan” with “Tartary” in the north. To the west coast of America, “California” is labelled along with “New Albion” and “Nootka Sound”, the scene of the Nootka Crisis of 1790.

Astronomy

The celestial gores are taken from the Adams-Ferguson plates, but includes Lane’s added hour angles along the equator in the southern hemisphere and a zodiacal belt along the ecliptic.

MINSHULL, George after LANE, Nicholas

Minshull’s 1816.

Publication [London], 1816.

Description

Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, clipped at 70 degrees latitude, with two polar calottes, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, paste-over imprint to cartouche, varnished, housed in original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores.

Dimensions

Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inches).

References Dekker, pp.393-394; Sumira 35 and 45; Worms and Baynton-Williams, p.451.

€18,000

Minshull, 1816

Biography

Geography

Minshull’s globe is an updated version of Thomas Lane’s issue of his father’s pocket globe. Minshull was one of several makers who reissued Lane family globes - his imprint has been pasted over the original.

Nicholas Lane’s pocket globe, with completely new terrestrial plates, was first issued in 1779. His son, Thomas, updated the plates in 1807 and sold them wholesale. The present globe is based on Thomas’s updated plates.

“New South Wales, Botany Bay and Cape Byron are depicted in New Holland (Australia), and “Buenos Ayres” (Buenos Aires) appears in South America. Two years later there were more changes: Dimens Land (Tasmania) is separated from New Holland by the Bass Strait; Port Jackson (Sydney) is added to the eastern coast of the mainland; and Sharks’ Bay and ‘South C.’ are newly marked on the western side. The Antipodes of London are also shown. In northwest America, “New Albion” and the “Stony Mountains” (the Rockies) have been added. Curiously, the date of Captain Cook’s death, 14 February 1779, is another late addition squeezed in below the Sandwich Islands” (Sumira).

By 1816, the date of the globe shown here, the geography has been altered yet again: “At the southern tip of the Californian peninsula, “C. S. Lucas” (Cape San Lucas) is now shown... “Dampier’s Anchor”, where William Dampier first reached Australia, is marked off the north west coast of New Holland, and we see a mysterious “Labyrinth” [The Great Barrier Reef] off the north-east coast” (Sumira).

Astronomy

The celestial gores, which were acquired by Nicholas Lane from Richard Cushee sometime in the mid-eighteenth century, are geocentric in orientation. The difference is most noticeable in the orientation of Ursa Major, with the bear facing the other direction. The deep green colour is characteristic of Lane globes. Minshull has put his own stamp on the celestial gores by only colouring the constellations in green.

LANE, [Thomas after ADAMS, Dudley; and FERGUSON, James]

Lane’s Improved Globe.

Publication London, [c.1833].

Description

Terrestrial globe lined with 12 handcoloured engraved paper gores, one calotte at north pole, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, varnished, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, with hooks and eyes, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores, varnished.

Dimensions

Diameter: 75mm (3 inches).

References

Dekker, pp.393-394; Sumira 35 and 45; Worms and Baynton-Williams, p.387.

€18,000

The Swan River Colony

A magnificent Lane’s terrestrial pocket globe.

Biography

The present globe is the work of Nicholas Lane (fl.1775-1783) whose business was particularly associated with pocket globes. Little is known about Lane’s output, but Dekker suggests that his three inch globes were produced from the earlier works of Ferguson and Dudley Adams. When Dudley went bankrupt in about 1817, the copper plates appear to have come into the hands of the Lane firm, then run by Thomas Lane (fl.18011829), where the old cartouche was completely erased in favour of a new circular one. However, the name of the engraver, J. Mynde, was kept just below the cartouche. Later on, after 1820, Lane would erase Mynde’s name from the plates.

Geography

There have been several additions to this “improved” globe: compass points to the west of Cape Horn, monsoons in the Indian Ocean and the Great Wall of China. “Enderby’s Land 1833” is marked (part of Antarctica) discovered and named by the John Briscoe.

The tracks of Captain James Cook’s voyages are shown and the coastline of Australia drawn according to his reports. The most notable addition is the marking on the west coast of Australia of the “Swan R. Settlement”.

The Swan River Colony was the brainchild of Captain James Stirling who in 1827, aboard HMS ‘Success’, had explored the Swan River. On his return to London he petitioned Parliament to grant land for a settlement along the river. A consortium was set up by the MP Potter McQueen, but was disbanded after the Colonial Office refused to give them preference over independent settlers. One of the members of the consortium, Thomas Peel, did, however, accept the terms set down by Colonial Office. In late 1829, Peel arrived with 300 settlers and was granted 250,000 acres. The first reports of the new colony arrived back in England in late January 1830. They described the poor conditions and the land as being totally unfit for agriculture. They went on to say that the settlers were in a state of “near starvation” and (incorrectly) said that the colony had been abandoned. As a result of these reports, many people cancelled their migration plans or diverted to Cape Town or New South Wales.

Astronomy

The celestial gores, which were acquired by Nicholas Lane from Richard Cushee sometime in the mid-eighteenth century, are geocentric in orientation. The difference is most noticeable in the orientation of Ursa Major, with the bear facing the other direction. All three sets of celestial gores have been coloured differently, in order to highlight different aspects of the heavens.

The Saphea - a wonder of Islamic science

[Anonymous]

[Universal Astrolabe].

Publication [c.1250].

Description

Brass astrolabe, in western kufic script, throne decorated with geometric shapes in different mediums, engraved on recto, but embossed on the verso, a plain shackle with a ring on top is attached to the plate by a pin, the chamfered alidade attached by a central pin.

Dimensions

Diameter: 185mm.

€875,000

A rare and early Islamic universal astrolabe, produced in Al Andalus (Moorish Spain), during the Islamic Golden Age.

The Astrolabe

The astrolabe, sometimes called the slide rule of the heavens, traces its history back to Hellenistic times. The smart phone of its day, it could perform numerous functions: calculate the time of day or night; determine your position; show the movement and identify of heavenly bodies; cast horoscopes; help you navigate the oceans, and survey all the land you can see.

Among numerous other advances in the sciences, and mathematics, the early Islamic scholars were responsible for a spectacular leap forward in astrolabe design - the invention of the ‘universal’ astrolabe - also known as the ‘Saphea’ or catholic astrolabe.

Whereas the classical astrolabe required a specific plate - a disc that would sit in the body of the astrolabe or ‘mater’ - for each latitude, its universal cousin could be used at any given latitude. While the idea of the Saphea originated in Baghdad during the ninth century CE, actual instruments would not be produced until the eleventh century CE in Toledo, Spain.

Spain under Islamic rule was, for the time, a beacon of religious tolerance in Europe, with Muslims, Christians, and Jews, living relatively harmonious, multicultural lives. It was within this culture that one of the greatest mathematicians and instrument makers of their (or any other) generation was born: Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Yahya a-Naqqash al-Tujibi al-Zarqali, better known as Al-Zarqali or al-Zarqalluh (c.420-480 H / c.1029-1087 CE), which literally translates as ‘engraver’, as he was so proficient at the craft. In the west his name would become Latinized as Azarquiel.

Azarquiel devised a new stereographic projection in which he cast both the equatorial and ecliptic coordinate systems on to a vertical plane that cut the celestial sphere at the solstices. Adding a selection of important stars to this grid system produced a universal projection that was valid for every latitude without sacrificing any of the functionality of a standard projection.

Although the new instrument was a significant step forward, it did require the user to have a much better understanding of mathematics in order to use it effectively, and thus the classical astrolabe would continue to be the more popular instrument. This is reflected in the number of surviving examples from this period. The universal astrolabe would not catch on in Western Europe until some 500 years after the first example was made by Azarquiel.

Dating

Although this Saphea is not dated, an approximate date can be ascertained by the Zodiac scale and Julian calendar - to the verso - and the placement of the stars on the projection on the recto.

The scale and calendar show that 0-degree Aries corresponds with approximately 13.8 March. This puts the possible date of construction between 1150 and 1250. The position of the stars corroborates this, with the closest match being from the thirteenth century.

A further comparison was made with two universal astrolabes dating from the thirteenth century: one from 1218/19 by Muammad ibn Fattū al-Khamāi’rī - housed in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (inv. cote Ge A 408)- and another from 1270/71 made by Ibrāhīm al-Dimashqī - which is in the British Museum (inv. 1890,0315.3). The present astrolabe has a very close match with the star placements on both astrolabes. However, the few misaligned stars indicate a later date when compared to the Khamāi’rī astrolabe and earlier when compared to the Dimashqī example. This suggests that the present instrument sits somewhere in between the two i.e. from 1219 to 1270. Therefore a date of around 1250 is not unreasonable.

Attribution

The thirteenth century was a lively period for astrolabe making in the Islamic West i.e. Maghrib and al-Andalus. Khamāi’rī was arguably the most prominent of the instrument makers of his time. At least fourteen astrolabes by his hand survive, albeit most of them are planispheric. However, as he tends to sign his works it would seem unlikely that the present instrument is by him.

Rarity

We are only able to trace six institutional examples of early, i.e. pre-1300, universal astrolabes: Louvre Abu Dhabi; The Observatory Rome; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Institutio Historico de Marina, Madrid; The Victoria and Albert Museum; and The British Museum. A seventh formerly in The Time Museum, Rockford, Illinois, is now in private hands.

Full description of the Astrolabe

Recto

Engraved along the circumference of the recto is four sets of 90-degree scales arranged in four quadrants. Each scale is divided into 5-degrees and labelled with alphanumeric notation (i.e., abjad) and further subdivided into 1-degree. Inside the scales is a double universal astrolabe projection of the same style which was first designed by the eleventh-century Andalusian astronomer al‐Zarqālī known as saphea azarchelis. The first projection

represents the celestial coordinates. The second is superimposed at an angle of approximately 23.5 degrees and represents the ecliptic coordinates.

The equatorial longitudes are labelled in abjad for every 5-degrees from 5- to 180-degree and in reverse 185- to 360-degree along the equator. The equatorial latitudes are also labelled for 5-degrees from the equator to the poles in the order of 5-10-5-20-5-30-… instead of 5-10-15-20-25-…

The poles are inscribed:

The southern celestial pole - Quṭb mu‘addil al-nahār janūbī

The northern celestial pole - Quṭb mu‘addil al-nahār shimālī

On the ecliptic projection the ecliptic and longitude arcs for every 30-degrees are marked with arrow-shaped patterns. The poles are inscribed:

The southern ecliptic pole - Quṭb falak al-burūj janūbī

The northern ecliptic pole - Quṭb falak al-burūj shimālī

The names of the signs of the zodiac are engraved between 35- and 40-degree ecliptic latitude curves on both northern and southern sides.

They read:

Signs on the southern side

Jawzā - Thawr - Ḥamal - Ḥūt - Dalw - Jadī

Gemini - Taurus - Aries - Pisces - Aquarius - Capricorn

Signs on the northern side

Qaws - ‘Aqrab - Mīzān - Sunbula - Asad - Saraṭān

Sagittarius - Scorpio - Libra - Virgo - Leo - Cancer

There are seventeen stars that are labelled and marked by a small dot inside a circle. These are:

(Starting at northern ecliptic pole towards the ecliptic)

α Lyrae - wāqi‘

α Cygni - ridf

α Bootis - rāmiḥ

β Pegasi - mankib faras

α Aquilae - ṭā’ir

β Persei - ghūl

α Aurigae - ‘ayyūq

? - munīr al-?

(Starting at southern ecliptic pole towards the ecliptic)

α Carinae - Suhayl

α Canis Maioris - ‘abūr

β Sagittarii - ‘urqūb al-rāmī

β Leonis - ṣarfa

α Sagittarii - rukbat rāmī

β Canis Minoris - ghumayṣā

α Tauri - dabarān

α Scorpionis - qalb

α Virginis - a‘zal

Alidade

Attached by a central pin on the recto is a chamfered alidade. On the chamfer is a ruler with 5-unit divisions and 1-unit subdivisions. Each 5-unit is labelled in abjad. Divisions are engraved neatly and correspond well with the engravings on the universal astrolabe projection on the recto. Style of inscription and near-perfect match of the divisions indicate that the alidade is highly likely to be the original.

Verso

On the upper half of the circumference is a double 90-degree altitude scale, divided into 5-degree and labelled in abjad, and further subdivided into 1-degree. Lower half of the circumference carries non-linear shadow scales or cotangent scales for 12-base on the right and 7-base on the left. The scale for 12-base is divided and labelled for 3, 6, 9, 12, 17, 22, 27, 39, and 48 units. The scale for 7-base is divided and labelled for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30 units.

Inside these are two nested circular scales, one for the zodiac calendar and the other for the Julian calendar. The Julian calendar is also divided into five-day intervals and labelled, and further subdivided into one-day intervals.

The inscription for the zodiacal calendar reads: al-Sunbula - al-Asad - al-Saraṭān - al-Jawzā - al-Thawr - al-Ḥamal Virgo - Leo - Cancer - Gemini - Taurus - Aries al-Ḥūt - al-Dalw - al-Jadī - al-Qaws - al-‘Aqrab - al-Mīzān Pisces - Aquarius - Capricorn - Sagittarius - Scorpio - Libra

The inscription for the Julian calendar reads: August - July - June - May - April - March February - January - December - November - October - September

At the centre of the verso is an orthographic projection on three quadrants while the lower right quadrant carries a sine graph (mujayyab) with 59 parallel lines for the sexagesimal (60-base) system. The divisions of the projection are labelled for each 5-degree.

We are grateful to Dr Taha Yasin Arslan, Medeniyet University, Istanbul, for his assistance with this description.

The

CANDIDASA

यन्त्ररााज [Yantraraja].

Publication Ahmedabad, 1605.

Description

Brass astrolabe, elaborate throne, mater, womb, rete, six plates, with text, alidade.

Dimensions

Diameter: 276mm (0 by 10.75 inches).

€180,000

The earliest extant Sanskrit astrolabe, commissioned by an Indian astronomer for his son’s education.

The Astrolabe

From its Mediterranean origins, the astrolabe was preserved and developed by Islamic scholars in the Middle East for centuries. In 1017 Persian polymath Al-Biruni travelled to India, bringing with him the instrument. His treatise on the land’s culture and religion, known simply as ‘India’, mentions a manual on the astrolabe that the author claims to have written in Sanskrit verse. Although no such manual exists today, it seems clear that the astrolabe was introduced into India in the early-eleventh century. Astrolabes first began to be manufactured in India over three hundred years later, following the establishment of a new sultanate at Delhi, which encouraged the migration of Islamic scholars learned in astronomy and astrology. Under Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq, a Jain astronomer named Mahendra Suri received royal patronage to compose a Sanskrit manual on the instrument, which he named ‘Yantraraja’ (‘the king of astronomical instruments’). Over the subsequent centuries hundreds, if not thousands, of astrolabes were manufactured in India, of which the present item is the earliest surviving example.

Dating

The astrolabe has a six-line inscription in the womb of the mater, written in a combination of Sanskrit and medieval Gujurati common at this time. It reads:

“In Samvat 1663, Saka 1528 current, on the first of Magha, on Sunday, at the city of Ahmedabad, during the reign of the illustrious Salim Shah, [this] astrolabe was caused to be made by the astrologer Candidasa for the purpose of the reading of [his] son Damodara.”

This date was originally thought to correspond to February 1, 1607, but more sophisticated conversion programmes have led experts more recently to conclude that Sunday December 25, 1605, is the date on which manufacture of the astrolabe was completed. Supporting this earlier date is the fact that just two months earlier, Salim Shah had ascended to the throne of the Mughal Empire at Agra and assumed the royal name Nur al-Din Jahangir. It is much more likely that an instrument completed two months after this change, and perhaps begun before it, would bear the old name than one made a year and a half later.

As a result, the present item is the earliest extant Sanskrit astrolabe. Although it is likely that the instruments were being produced in India as early as the fourteenth century, since the first Sanskrit manual on astrolabes was made in 1370, no earlier example has been discovered.

Attribution

The inscription notes that the astrolabe was commissioned (“caused to be made”) by Candidasa for the instruction of his son Damodara. Unlike among Islamic scholars, and despite the popularity of the astrolabe with Indian astronomers, the manufacture of astrolabes never became a specialist occupation in Indian, where skilled Hindu metal-workers produced the instruments on commission. It would generally be the responsibility of the astronomer to prepare drawings of the astrolabe they wanted made, and give them to a willing bronze-worker to be produced. As a result, inscriptions on Sanskrit astrolabes typically name the patron rather than the maker. Another result is that often display typographical errors, especially to the names of celestial bodies, as the craftsmen responsible for them were not themselves experts in astronomy.

Rarity

Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma, Professor of Sanskrit at Aligarh Muslim University and expert on Sanskrit astrolabes, identifies 130 extant Sanskrit astrolabes, made in Gujurat and Rajasthan between 1605 and 1903. They are mainly held in museums and institutions, and their appearance on the market is rare. The present astrolabe is the earliest known example of such an instrument.

Full description of the Astrolabe

Recto

The mater of the astrolabe consists of a brass disc 10.3mm in thickness with a raised rim, the limb, engraved with the degree scale in two bands. The inner band is graduated in single degrees, and the outer every three degrees, identified with Devanagari numerals in western Indian style. At the centre of the womb beneath the attribution inscription is a pin hole and pin, with which the latitude plates are held firmly in position.

The mater is surmounted by an elaborate throne with a wide base, pierced to form an ornate pattern of foliage. A short inscription reads “salutation to the divine eye”. A hole at the top of the throne above the inscription allows the astrolabe to be attached to the suspension shackle and ring, on which it is hung vertically and is able to rotate 360 degrees.

The Plates

The womb of the mater accommodates six thin circular discs bearing stereographic projections of the heavens from distinct terrestrial latitudes. These latitude discs are 252mm in diameter and have two holes, one in the centre at the site of the North Pole, through which they are slotted onto the mater’s central pin, and another on the lower half to keep the plates from rotating.

On each of the plates the four cardinal directions are marked, with east-west and north-south lines. Three concentric circles represent the tropics and the celestial equator. The local horizon is presented, and above the horizon circle, parallel altitude circles, or almucantars, are drawn. Unlike on Islamic astrolabes, Sanskrit instruments rarely bear azimuth lines, which do not appear on the present example.

The lower half of each plate has the three semi-circles formed by the tropics and equator divided into 12 parts. Connecting lines, which are not arcs as usually found but rather straight lines, designate unequal hour lines or seasonal hour lines, the former numbered from one to 12, west to east. While the Islamic and European custom was to measure time in unequal hours, Hindu and Jain practice was to divide the day into equal 24-minute periods, called ghatis. The fact that the astrolabe describes the former system indicates that it was made for use by Muslims, not Hindus or Jains.

Between the local horizon and the tropic of Cancer, each side of every plate has four pieces of data engraved concerning its specific projection: the name of the town or city from which it could be used; its latitude; the length of the midday equinoctial shadow; the length of the longest day at this latitude. Contemporary and earlier Sanskrit astronomical manuals and gazettes would have equipped the user with the formulas required to convert any one of the three latter values into another, but each is listed here to expedite the use of the instrument.

Although the engraving is well-executed, the calligraphy of the letters and numerals is by a different hand to that found on the mater, and the overall workmanship is also less fine. These details suggest that the plates originally made for the astrolabe, being thinner sheets of metal, may have been damaged and had to be replaced at a later date, with the present six manufactured by another metalworker.

The Rete

The rete is an openwork disc of 250mm in diameter, bearing the stereographic projection of the sphere of fixed stars. 24 prominent stars are marked according to their longitudes and latitudes, with their names engraved, with occasional errors, on their respective curved star pointers:

samudrapaksi - Deneb Kaitos

maghodara - Mirach [illegible]

pre - Algol

Rohini - Aldeberan

sanmusa - Capella

mithunapadapa - Saiph

vamaskada - Bellatrix

mithunaha - Betelgeuse

adralu - Sirius

pra.va - Castor

lubdhakavadha - Procyon

magha - Regulus

uttarapha - Denebola

kakaskanda - Gienah

citra - Spica

svati - Arcturus

visasa - Alphecca

dhanukoti - Rasalhague

dhanusira

abhijit - Vega

sravana - Altair

kubha - Deneb

pu bha - Sheat

Three concentric circles represent the tropics and the celestial equator.

The ecliptic is drawn with a radius of 21;26 units from a centre situated on the meridian at 8;34 units south of the plate’s central point.

The ecliptic circle is divided into the 12 signs of the Zodiac in unequal divisions, in proportion to the rising times of the signs at the equator. Each sign is further subdivided into ten units of three degrees and numbered, except those of Gemini. The signs are named in Sanskrit, sometimes misspelled:

masa - Aries

vasa - Taurus

mithana - Gemini

karka - Cancer

simha - Leo

kanya - Virgo

tula - Libra

vrscika - Scorpio

dhana - Saggitarius

makara - Capricorn

kubha - Aquarius

mina - Pisces

The workmanship of the rete is far inferior to that of the maker, with several star pointers not clearly cut. The calligraphy of the letters and numerals is also different from that found on the plates and mater. The rete therefore seems to be the work of a distinct craftsman, perhaps of a different period, from the maker of the mater. It is likely that it was made later as a replacement for the original damaged rete, which would have been directly, although imperfectly, copied.

Alidade

Attached by a central pin on the recto is the alidade, 265mm in length. It is a straight metal bar with pointed ends, and a sighting tube (290mm) is attached by upright supports. Neither Islamic nor European astrolabes have sighting tubes attached to the alidade, perhaps because, although they naturally facilitate sighting, they prevent the calibration of the upper surface of the alidade, thereby impeding its functionality for trigonometric uses.

Verso

The perimeter of the verso is banded by a degree scale, again with the inner band graduated in single degrees and the outer by threes. The upper lefthand quadrant contains a sexagesimal sine graph with 60 horizontal parallel and equally-spaced lines, numbered in threes along the vertical radius. An arc is engraved at 24 degrees to mark to the obliquity of the ecliptic. The quadrant is divided into three sectors of 30 degrees by three radii, with the numbers one to 12 engraved in four rows.

The upper right-hand quadrant presents a series of curves for unequal hours, numbered one to 12. This feature is unique to this astrolabe, and does not appear on any other extant Sanskrit instruments, which usually show a declination graph in this quadrant.

The lower half of the verso is engraved with a shadow square, with 12 digits inscribed on the left-hand half, and seven on the right. As expected of a Sanskrit astrolabe, the verso contains much less information than those of its Islamic and Indo-Persian counterparts.

[?MARKE, John]

[Brass Astrolabe and Slide Rule].

Publication [1678].

Description

Brass astrolabe, the front of the plate engraved for a universal astrolabe with De Rojas projection, graduated regula and cursor, below the throne a table of 24 stars and a perpetual calendar for Leap Years and Epact, dated 1678; the reverse of the plate with scales for a circular slide rule with scales for tangents, sines and numbers, two rotating index arms.

Dimensions 713 by 659mm (28 by 26 inches).

€600,000

The “Panchronologia”

One of the largest and grandest computational devices made in the seventeenth century.

The so styled “Panchronologia” combines one of the most ancient of scientific instruments, the astrolabe, with one of its most modern (for the time), the slide rule. At 26 inches (66 cm) in diameter and weighing 23 lbs (10.4kg) it is not only one of the largest astrolabes ever produced but arguably the largest computational device to have survived from the seventeenth century, and thus a hugely important work in the history of computing.

The Astrolabe

The astrolabe some times called the slide rule of the heavens, traces its history back to Hellenistic times. The smart phone of it’s day it could perform numerous functions including calculating the time day or night, determine your position, show the movement and identify heavenly bodies, cast horoscopes, help you navigate the oceans, and survey your land.

The astrolabe is on a De Rojas or orthographic projection. The De Rojas is a form of universal projection, i.e. one that can be used at any northern latitude, unlike their traditional cousins which were bound to a particular latitude. Such universal astrolabes had been pioneered by Islamic instrument makers in the twelfth century, but were made popular in the Europe in the sixteenth century when De Rojas published his ‘Commentariorum in astrolabium’, in Paris, in 1551.

To the upper part below the throne is a list of 24 stars marked a-z:

a - Aliot;

b -Cin: Andr

c - Spica [Virgo]

d - Cap [Aries]

e - Arctu

f - Os: Ceti

g - Corona

h - Cor [Scorpio]

i - Ocul. [Taurus]

k - Hircus

l - Pes: Ori S.

m - Cin Orio.

n - Auriga

o - Lyra

p - Can. ma:

q - Can: mi: Aquila

r - Aquila

s - Corn: VS.

t - Cignus

u - Cor: hy:

w - Cor: [Leo]

x - Fomaha

y - Caud [Leo]

z - Ala peg.

Below this a perpetual calendar for Leap Years, and Epact (age of the moon at the beginning of the year), dated 1678.

The instrument is bisected by a graduated regula and cursor.

The Slide Rule

A Brief History

The slide rule was central to the practice of mathematics, from its invention at the beginning of the seventeenth century, to its hasty demise at the hands of the pocket calculator some 340 years later. Its invention by William Oughtred (1574-1660), in 1632, would revolutionises the area of computing, allowing the user to perform quickly complex computations; its use was not only mathematical but practical, with rules designed for engineers, brewers, printers, customs officers, shipwrights, and astronomers among many others. They were even used during the Cold War to calculate radiation exposure over time, and Buzz Aldrin is said to have used one for last minute calculations before landing on the moon, though suggestions that his failed attempts to put it back in his pocket was the reason he was second out of the lander have not been verified.

In its purest form, two logarithmic scales are placed next to each other on two rules, enabling calculations to be made when sliding the rules past each other, hence slide rule. The earliest extant example of such an instrument (though not the instrument itself - which is now lost) is housed the in Macclesfield collection at the University of Cambridge Library, where a counter proof print of Elias Allen’s (1588-1653) instrument is attached to a letter from Oughtred to Allen, dated 1638. Oughtred laments to Allen that he is yet to have one made.

However, the very first slide rules were circular, as here. The earliest extant example of such an instrument was produced by Elias Allen - him again - and although not dated, is believed to have been produced in around 1634. It currently resides in the History of Science Museum, Oxford (HSM 40847). The earliest dated circular slide rule, marked 1635 (though lacking the rule) and signed by the Oxford instrument maker Johannes Hulett, is in the British Museum (BM 2002,0708.1).

Slide Rules on Astrolabes

It would seem from our research that it took a while before slide rules were added to astrolabes (though further study is required). The earliest example we were able to trace is housed in the National Maritime Museum (NMM AST0567). The astrolabe was originally made for Edward VI around 1552 by the instrument maker Thomas Gemini. Over one hundred years later, Henry Sutton (c.1635-65), the pre-eminent instrument maker of his day (and John Marke’s master) engraved inside the mater - which was originally blank - a circular slide rule, signed and dated 1655. A rather stylish seventeenth century retrofit.

The circular slide rule on the present instrument is clearly the largest ever produced in the seventeenth century, and certainly the largest ever on an astrolabe. The two rotating index arms are marked for tangents, sines, and numbers i.e. in order to perform complex trigonometrical calculations. One assumes this was in order to calculate the accurate positioning of celestial bodies where triangulation was essential. Its sheer size allowed for an unprecedented number of gradations, making the most accurate slide rule of the time, and allowing the user of the instrument unmatched precision.

Attribution, Association, and Date

One of the most curious aspects of the instrument is that it’s neither signed nor dated. However, documents in the Archer-Houlbon Archive at Welford Park, do shed some light on to both aspects.

They reveal that the object was sent on a four year loan to Professor Karl Pearson F.R.S. (1857-1936) at University College London, alongside a now lost manuscript which bore the title ‘Panchronologia’ and was dated 1672/3. The letters confirm that the ‘Panchronologia’ was first cleaned in December 1900 and that Pearson appears to have been more interested in the face with the slide rule than the astrolabe: when he exhibits it at the Royal Society it was described as the former.

Furthermore, he writes that he compared the handwriting of the manuscript to that of Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1726) but that there was no match to indicate his involvement – his investigation stems from the familial tradition that asserted the manuscript and astrolabe were passed down the generations from Newton himself, to whom they were related.

A similar, but smaller, 17 inch (43 cm) universal astrolabe at the History of Science Museum in Oxford (HSM 51786) is signed and dated 1659 by Henry Sutton (c.1635-65). Indeed, it is tempting to speculate that Sir John Houblon (1632-1712) may have even known Sutton since he lived on Threadneedle Street, where Sutton had his workshop, although no known documentation exists to confirm the acquaintance. What is more concrete however is that the current astrolabe is clearly related to that in Oxford. Although dated thirteen years after Sutton’s death, the

table of stars on the 1678 astrolabe includes and expands upon those on the earlier instrument. Further a copying error on the perpetual calendar attest to this relationship: a ‘78’ on the Oxford astrolabe is punched incorrectly with the ‘8’ on its side resembling ‘00’; this is copied onto the larger astrolabe’s perpetual calendar as ‘700’. The maker of the instrument in 1678 either had access to the Sutton astrolabe or the counter proof, also preserved in Oxford (HSM 56420).

The most likely candidate to have had that access to the master maker’s instruments are amongst one of Sutton’s five recorded apprentices: specifically John Marke (fl. 1664-79) who caught the attention of John Collins (1625-83) when he wrote that “We hope he may prove as good a Workeman as his deceased Master”. From his surviving instruments, the visible similarity in the style of engraving mixed with the use of smaller punched numbers is striking. He is also known in 1673 to have engraved a new plate for the then century old “Great Astrolabe” (University of St. Andrews ID PH201) by Humphrey Cole (d 1591), which is the only other extant English astrolabe on this scale, having a diameter of 24 inches (61 cm).

Conclusion

Although astrolabes had a variety of functions the sheer size of the present instrument, its grand title ‘Panchronolgia’ (All Time Calculator), the perpetual calendar, together with its use of the universal projection would suggest its primary function was the precise calculation of the position of the heavenly bodies over the previous and coming years i.e. as the most accurate calendar of its day. A function greatly reinforced by the addition of the huge circular slide rule on the reverse.

This would be the last great flowering of the astrolabe in the western world, with the instrument superseded by the scientific advances of the coming century. The slide rule on the other hand would last for a another 300 years, until 1972 when Hewlett-Packard produced the first pocket calculator.

Provenance

Sir John Houblon (1632-1712), thence by descent. Exhibited: London: Royal Society Soirée, 14 May 1902.

[KHALIL, Mohammad and Abd AL-A’IMMA]

[Brass Persian astrolabe].

Publication [Isfahan, c.1707].

Description

Brass astrolabe, Persian script to throne, limb, mater, and womb, rete, and verso, with horse, and alidade.

Dimensions

Diameter: 99mm (4 inches).

References

Gingerich, O. et al., ‘The ‘Abd Al-A’Imma Astrolabe Forgeries’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 3(3), 1972, pp.188-198; Mayer, L. A., Islamic astrolabists and their works, 1956; Saliba, G., ‘The Buffalo Astrolabe of Muhammad Khalil’, Al Abhath, 26(01), 1973, pp.11-18.

€540,000

Safavid astrolabe

The Astrolabe

The astrolabe, sometimes called the slide rule of the heavens, can trace its history back to Hellenistic times. The smart phone of its day, it could perform numerous functions: calculate the time of day or night; determine your position; show the movement and identify of heavenly bodies; cast horoscopes; help you navigate the oceans, and survey all the land you can see.

Among numerous other advances in the sciences and mathematics, the early Islamic scholars were responsible for spectacular developments in astrolabe design, from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The Islamic astrolabe consists of several components. The main body of the instrument is called the ‘mater’, with a suspension hook or chain often attached to the main circular form by a decorative ‘throne’. Around the outer edge of the mater is the limb, on which are inscribed the degree scale and scale of hours. The centre of the mater is hollowed-out so that it can hold additional elements; for this reason it is fittingly called the womb.

Astrolabes often had a number of circular plates that could be inserted into the womb, and stacked on top of one another. These plates were engraved with stereographic projections, which represent on a flat surface the threedimensional celestial sphere. Each plate specific to a certain latitude, meaning that different plates are required for each new latitude to be studied. On top of the plate sits the rete, a cut-out plate with several features: the star pointers, which mark the location of particular stars; the ecliptic ring, which represents the annual path of the Sun; the Zodiac, a circle divided into 30-degree intervals and extending around the ecliptic, within which the movements of the celestial bodies occur.

Across the front of the astrolabe a centrally-fixed bar, the rule, is rotated to relate positions found on the plate or rete to the scale marked on the limb of the mater. On the back of the astrolabe, a rotating bar called the alidade has small holes or slots at each end, through which to look at, for example, a celestial body.

Dating

Although the precise date is not given, the inscription on the throne bears the name of Shāh Sultān Husayn al- Safawī al-Mūsawī, who ruled from 1694 to 1722. Similar astrolabes by the same makers do bear dates, including one manufactured in 1707-8, which may suggest a more precise time for their collaboration.

Attribution

Among the most prominent of the Safavid astrolabists, Muhammad Khalil was active in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries and most likely based in Isfahan. Working with a number of artists and engravers to produce these instruments, it appears that Khalil was largely responsible for the technical and scientific aspects of astrolabe manufacture and design.

Across his works, his signature varies, sometimes including a patronymic identifying his father as Hasan Ali, and often describing Khalil himself as the humble servant of God.

Despite being the most prolific of the Persian astrolabe engravers, nothing is known about the life of ‘Abd al-A’imma. In addition to executing the designs of Muhammad Khalil, al’A’imma created instruments independently, and in collaboration with other artists including Muhammad Tahir and Muhammad Amin. He thus appears to have been one of the leading members of the Isfahan school of astrolabists, and to have been active from around 1678 to 1722. All of his work is characterised by rich calligraphy and detailed metalwork. Indeed, the precision and artistry of the present astrolabe is the result of the collaboration between the two craftsmen, al-A’imma and Khalil.

Rarity

Astrolabes by Muhammad Khalil and ‘Abd al-A’imma are rare, and instruments made by the two in collaboration even more scarce. Mayer identifies five (IX, X, XVI, XVIII, XIX) which are now held by the University of Oxford (2), the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Chester Beatty Collection in Dublin, and St Petersburg. The present item is, therefore, only the sixth known example of a Khalil and al-A’imma astrolabe.

Full description of the Astrolabe

Recto

The bronze mater has an ornately engraved throne with a dedication in Persian. The limb bears a 360-degree scale with every fifth degree labelled with alphanumeric notations. Sections of three, comprising every 15 degrees and representing one hour, are jointly decorated. Engraved in the womb is a gazetteer presenting the names, longitudes, latitudes, and qibla direction of 46 localities:

Outer ring

Mecca, Madīna, Misr (Cairo), Sana’a, Lahsa, Bayt al-Maqdīs, Dimashq, Halab, Mūsul, Nakhjiwān, Marāgha, Tabrīz, Ardabīl, Sarmanrā, Kūfa, Baghdād, Basra, Shustar, Qāzarūn, Shirāz, Yazd, Hamadān, Qazwīn, Jerfādfān, Isfahān, Kāshān, Qum, Tāliqān, Astarābād, Simnān, Dāmghān.

Inner ring

Mashad, Nīshabūr, Tūn, Sabzawār, Herāt, Qā’in, Belkh, Hurmūz, Kirmān, Qandahār, Lahūr, Kashmīr, Qanja, Tiflīs, Şīrwān.

Verso

To the back, the mater is divided into three parts: the upper left-hand quadrant is a sine graph with 60-unit parallel and perpendicular lines, with juxtaposed dots to every fifth line; the upper right-hand quadrant is engraved with nested circles representing the signs of the Zodiac, as well as intersecting arcs, which show the solar altitude at which the sun aligns with the direction of Mecca for six localities Tūs, Yazd, Isfahān, Qazwīn, Baghdād, and Shīrāz. Both quadrants have 90-degree scales along their rims.

The lower half presents a a cotangent scale with a base-12 system on the right edge and a base-7 system on the left edge; there is also a circular astrological scale, the double shadow square, a table of triplicities and the signatures.

Plate, rete, alidade, and rule

All pieces of the astrolabe apart from the mater are by a later and lessskilled craftsman, made as replacements for damaged or missing parts. The rete, with floral stems serving as star pointers, is designed after Muhammad Khalil, but executed with less artistry. The divisions of the signs of the Zodiac are particularly crude and often erroneous, and the typical subdivisions of three or six degrees are omitted.

The plate bears almucantars and seasonal hours for unknown latitudes. The alidade is distinctly different in style from those found on other astrolabes by Khalil, albeit only a few millimeters too long. The rule takes the form of a horse, which has played an important role in Persian culture for millennia, and which is found on other Khalil instruments, but here is by the same secondary maker as the other replacement parts. The similarities of the rete and rule to others by Khalil indicate that the maker had some access to the original parts or to another astrolabe by the maker, on which he based his designs.

We are grateful to Dr Taha Yasin Arslan, Medeniyet University, Istanbul, for his assistance with this description.

[ANONYMOUS after DEMONGENET, François]

[Ivory rosary with celestial and terrestrial globes].

Publication [Italy, c.1580s].

Description 11 engraved bone spheres and one engraved bone cross, on brass chain.

References

Carol Cofone, The Dragon’s Tail: “Branding” the Boncompagni family (Archivio Digitale Boncompagni Ludovisi, 2018).

Elly Dekker, Globes at Greenwich: a catalogue of the globes and armillary spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Oxford: Oxford University Press and the National Maritime Museum, 1999).

Mark Häberlein, The Fuggers of Augsburg: Pursing Wealth and Honour in Renaissance Germany (Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 2012).

Augustín Hernando, The Construction of Terrestrial and Celestial Globes in Spain (Globe Studies, 2014).

Hatto Küffner, 500 Jahre Rosenkranz (Köln, 1975).

J. Kügel, Spheres: The Art of the Celestial Mechanic (Kügel, 2002).

Christ Laning, The beads of Bishop Jakob (Paternosters: A Journal about Historical Rosaries, Paternosters and Other Forms of Prayer Beads, Focusing on those in Use before 1600AD, 2007).

Edward Luther Stevenson, Terrestrial and Celestial Globes: Their History and Construction (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921).

€300,000

The Boncompagni Rosary Globes

A newly-discovered sixteenth-century rosary telling the story of creation and the early ages of man. Only the second known example of such an extraordinary devotional object, the Boncompagni Rosary features two miniature globes. These celestial and terrestrial spheres, bearing many of the hallmarks of contemporary cartography and astronomy, are part of a globe-making tradition that spanned Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Originally commissioned by one of Italy’s leading noble families, the rosary is now offered for the first time in over four centuries.

François Demongenet

François Demongenet was a French physicist and geographer active in Vesoul in eastern France during the mid- and late-sixteenth century. He is best known for a set of terrestrial and celestial globe gores made in 1552. These gores were distributed throughout Europe, particularly through Italian printing houses, and used as a model for numerous miniature globes during the sixteenth century.

It appears that the Demogenet family counted some esteemed figures among its later members, including an advisor to King Louis XIV and several military commanders. François’s cartographic legacy, however, was continued only by the various European globemakers inspired by his gores, as exemplified by the first and second bead on the present rosary.

Antonio Spano

Antonio Spano was an Italian artist from the town of Tropea in Calabria, styling himself Antonio Spano Tropiensis on some occasions. His presence in Naples in 1575 is evidenced by records of his appearance in court for failure to marry his betrothed, which he did the following year. At some point in the following decade, Spano travelled to Madrid to work as a sculptor in the decorating of the recently completed El Escorial, a contract he had secured through his master and father-in-law, Marco de Pino.

The earliest dated known work by Spano is an ivory globe held by the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, inscribed near the South Pole: “Antonius Spano tropiensis facie 1593”, by which time he was already enjoying the patronage of Philip II of Spain. Spano was granted a pension by Philip until his death in 1615, at which time it was passed onto his son, Francisco, and continued under Philip III.

Although investigations into Spano’s contributions to El Escorial have been made, and one painting briefly attributed to him, his known artistic output has thus far been limited to the globe of 1593 and an ivory rosary owned by Jacob Fugger, Bishop of Constance in the early seventeenth century, which has the attribution ‘Antonius Spanus Tropien incidebat’ on the celestial globe. As discussed below, the present rosary is in many

ways very similar to the Constance prayer beads, but shows several small but significant variations, from spelling to cartography, which raises an interesting question about its attribution.

The Rosary

The rosary, or prayer beads, have been used by Christians as early as the Desert Fathers, the hermits who lived in the Egyptian deserts and used string tied in knots to keep track of their prayers. While the style changed significantly across the ensuing millennia, the principle and the form has remained essentially the same: with the beads, knots or notches keeping count of one’s prayers, the mind is free to meditate fully on the mysteries of God. They are typically arranged with ten beads to represent a ‘decade’ of Aves (Hail Mary), with each decade preceded by a Pater Noster (Lord’s Prayer) and followed by a Gloria Patri (Glory Be).

This pattern is often repeated five or 15 times to create a much longer rosary, although single-decade rosaries are also used. Historically, they even proved popular during times of Catholic persecution, where they could be concealed more effectively than a string of 60 or more beads! Although the Catholics of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Spain certainly faced no persecution, the present example is a single-decade rosary, formed of a cross patonce and 11 beads, representing the decade of Aves and one Pater Noster.

The cross and beads that make up the present rosary are intricately engraved with Biblical images. Quotations from the Latin Vulgate Bible are inscribed upon each bead, most often around the lower pole, which serve to caption the scenes depicted.

The engravings on this rosary are near-identical to those found on Spano’s rosary made for Bishop Fugger, which are described by Küffner as ‘depictions from the prophecies of the Holy Saturday liturgy: Creation of the World, Fall of Man, Noah’s Ark and Other Old Testament Scenes’. The present beads display the same scenes taken from a selection of Old Testament books; the quotations used are from the same verses, albeit with various strange errors; and the illustrations and stylistic elements differ slightly from the Fugger rosary. Likewise, the cross is more elaborate here, and all elements connected by a chain rather than by wire links. The details of each element of the rosary are as follows:

The Cross –

A patonce cross (30 x 30mm) with each arm terminating in three floriated points, with an engraving of two figures encircled by the words of Francis of Assisi: tu es pastor ovium. tu es vas electionis (“you are the pastor of the flock. You are the vessel of the election”). The first refers to Jesus Christ and the second to the apostle St. Paul, revealing the identity of the men. On the four arms of the cross are four further male figures

seated at desks, representing the Church fathers: Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and Pope Gregory I. The back of the cross has at its centre a tree, with the circular caption reading: “egredietur virga de radice Jesse” (‘a rod will come from the stem of Jesse’ - Isaiah 11:1). On the four arms are the four evangelists, each seated beside scrolls or paper, and each accompanied by the living creature with whom he is symbolically associated: Matthew with man, Mark the lion, Luke the Calf, and John the Eagle. The edges of the cross are engraved with designs including a ladder, perhaps a reference to Jacob’s dream of a stairway to heaven (Genesis 28:12), and a cross.

Bead 1: Genesis 1:1 –

The first and largest bead of the rosary (27mm diameter) is a miniature celestial globe, reflecting the opening words of the Latin Vulgate Bible: “in principio creavit Deus caelum et terram” (‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ - Genesis 1:1). Indeed, these words are written in the southern hemisphere besides the Argo Navis (Ship) constellation. The globe is filled with these constellations, illustrated and labelled in Latin, and it also bears the celestial equator and ecliptic. They are viewed in reverse of how they are seen from earth, as if to provide God’s external view, looking in at the heavens from without.

The astronomy for the first bead is taken from the celestial globe of François Demongenet. Certain details, such as the male figure seated on the Eridanus constellation, indicates that the design was taken not from the very first edition of Demongenet’s globe, but from one of the numerous later states.

Bead 2: Genesis 1:6 –

Following the celestial sphere is a bead engraved to form a tiny terrestrial globe (24mm diameter). Written in the Antarctic circle is the verse: “dixit quoque Deus: fiat firmamentum in medio aquarum: et dividat aquas” (‘And so God said, “Let there be a firmament in the middle of the waters and divide them”’ - Genesis 1:6). The globe has been engraved with impressive detail for such a small sphere, with several countries and seas labelled by name. It is different to Spano’s later globe of 1593, which took its cartography from Mario Cataro’s globe of 1577, and displays notable cartographical advances compared to earlier globes of the sixteenth century such as the Lenox Globe.

Again, the cartography is taken from Demongenet’s influential globe. Based on the world maps of Gerard Mercator, his terrestrial gores were themselves influenced by Gemma Frisius, who had produced an important globe in 1536. Frisius’ cartography appears to have been transmitted to Demogenet through Georg Hartmann’s terrestrial globe gores of 1547.

At least six different variants of Demongenet’s terrestrial gores are known to exist, which can generally be identified through the spelling of the name for Japan: Sipannge, Suango, Sipangi or Sipange. This globe, however, has Sipango, which appeared on Frisius’ original 1536 globe; whether the change here was intentional or a misreading of the source material is unclear.

Notable cartographic features include several fictitious islands given, and large landmasses at both poles, the northern marked “Groenlandia” and attached to Northern Russia, the southern continent marked “Terra Incognita”, with a large bulge where Europeans would find Australia the following century. America displays the distinct Verrazzano-shape to North America, so-named for the early Italian explorer, who made an expedition to the New World in 1524. Looking in at the waters of the Outer Banks from his ship, La Dauphine, Verrazzano concluded that they must be the Pacific. Thus on the map published after the ship’s return to Europe, and thenceforth on many maps and globes of the subsequent century, North America appears as a long, narrow isthmus, almost divided in two except for a narrow stretch of land.

While the globe bead of the Constance rosary is near-identical in cartographic terms, there are several notable differences: while Bishop Fugger’s rosary presents more illustrative details such as sea-monsters, the engraving is more heavy-handed and geographical details such as the shape of the Yucatan peninsula are less accurate than on the present globe. Interestingly, however, this globe has occasional spelling mistakes and mis-quotations in Latin. The caption ‘devicat anno 1530’ in America is a mistaken interpretation of Demongenet’s ‘devicta anno 1530’, which first appeared on Frisius’ globes, and is engraved correctly on Spano’s prayer beads for Bishop Fugger. Likewise the ghost islands in the southern Indian Ocean are also strangely rendered with spellings seen on neither any other Demogenet-inspired globes, nor the Constance rosary.

These errors, compiled with others found in the Latin engravings across the entire rosary, indicate that the present designs were executed by a different hand than the Fugger rosary, and that language may not have been the engraver’s forte!

Bead 1

Bead 2

Bead 3: Genesis 1:11 –

The third bead on the rosary (22mm diameter) shows a rugged natural landscape comprised of rolling hills covered in rivers, streams, trees and bushes. The circular text around the lower pole provides a continuation of the creation story: “et protulit terra herbam virentem, et facientem semen juxta genus suum, lignumque faciens fructum, et habens” (‘and the land brought forth vegetation, yielding seed of its own kind, and the tree bearing fruit and having...’ - Genesis 1:11).

Bead 4: Genesis 1:16 –

Following the creation of the earth and its greenery, the fourth bead (21mm diameter) depicts the creation of sun, moon and stars: “fecitque Deus duo luminaria magna: luminare maius, ut praeesset diei: et luminare minus, ut praeesset nocti: et stellas” (‘and God made two great lights: the larger light to preside over the day, and the smaller light to preside over night; and the stars’ - Genesis 1:16). The scene engraved on the bead looks out on an ocean from a wooded hillside, the sun, moon and stars all visible in the vast sky at once.

Bead 5: Genesis 1:25 –

The rosary’s fifth bead (20mm diameter) illustrates God’s creation of animals on earth, with charming details including elephants, a rhinoceros, various birds, tortoises, giraffes and sea-creatures. The text around the lower pole reads: “et fecit Deus bestias terrae juxta species suas” (‘and God made the beasts of the land, each according to its kind’ - Genesis 1:25). Bizarrely, the engraver has added the word “prophetia” (prophecy) to the end of his phrase, a word neither found in the Vulgate Latin Bible nor making sense. This is another example of several such instances of strange errors, additions and changes in Latin.

Bead 6: Genesis 1:27 –

Another instance is found on bead six (20mm diameter), on which the text surrounding the lower pole reads: “et creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem suam dies sextus”. The canonical Biblical verse has only: et creavit Deus hominem ad imaginem suam (‘and God made man in his image’ - Genesis 1:27). The addition here of “et similitudinem suam” refers back to God’s speech in Genesis 1:26 (faciamus hominem ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram - ‘I will make man according to my image and likeness’) while “dies sextus” does not appear until Genesis 1:31, when the ‘sixth day’ is complete. Bizarrely, comparing this inscription to Spano’s rosary for Bishop Fugger offers no further insight, as that also displays an erroneous inscription, placing the creation of man on the fifth day!

The scene on the bead is set in the Garden of Eden. First, Adam is shown lying on the ground with Eve growing out of his side, extending her arms towards a large fog probably representing the breath of life. Next is shown Eve’s temptation by the serpent, as she reaches to pluck fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Finally, an angel is shown pursuing the two humans out of Eden after God discovered their disobedience.

Bead 7: Genesis 2:2 –“Complevitque Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat: et requievit” (‘and on the seventh day God finished the work which he had done, and he rested’ - Genesis 2:2). The seventh bead (19mm diameter) on the rosary interprets the final day of creation, God’s sabbath. The earth already shows signs of civilization, with buildings of various sizes constructed on the sea shore, and boats on the water. On the other side of the bead is an engraving of the trinity in a star-studded heaven. The Father and Son are seated and holding between them an open book bearing the letters alpha and omega, the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet, in reference to the Lord’s statement in the final book of the Bible: ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ (Revelation 1:8). Above them flies the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

Bead 8: Genesis 7:5 –The eighth bead (17mm diameter) displays the damage that time can reap on even the most durable of materials. Much of the text is nearindecipherable, but the few discernable Latin words allow the inscribed verse to be identified as: “fecit ergo Noe omnia quae mandaverat ei Dominus” (‘Therefore Noah did everything that God had ordered him’ - Genesis 7:5). On the less-damaged side of the bead can be seen the great ark, with Noah’s family and the assorted animals waiting to get on board. The other side may perhaps show the colossal rains beginning to fall from heaven.

Bead 6

Bead 7

Bead 8

Bead 9 –

Bead nine (17mm diameter) strays from the chronology set up by the earlier beads. The first scene shows Moses leading the fleeing Israelites from Egypt through the Red Sea; they stand gathered on the shores as the prophet follows God’s instruction: “extende manum tuam super mare” (‘Extend your hand over the sea’ - Exodus 14:16). Then, however, the story seems to skip 20 books to the Book of Isaiah, from which the two other quotations around the base of the bead are taken:

“apprehendent septem mulieres virum unum” (‘seven women will take hold of one man’ - Isaiah 4:1) and “audite, audientes me, et comedite bonum” (‘listen, my listeners, and eat what is good’ - Isaiah 55:2).

Furthermore, the second scene shows Isaiah seated on a rock before five men, with a banner extending from his hand into the air reading: “omnes sitientes, venite ad aquas” (‘All those who thirst, come to the waters’Isaiah 55:1). In effect, the Latin appears to be written backwards and the words flow upwards, as if from the prophet’s mouth.

There are well-established links between the Book of Exodus and the Book of Isaiah, both of which contain an exodus narrative, the first from captivity in Egypt to the Holy Land, and the second from captivity in Babylon back to Jerusalem. It is not entirely clear, however, why these particular quotations and scene were chosen to ornament the ninth bead of his rosary.

Bead 10 –

The Biblical references chosen for the tenth bead (15mm diameter) are also something of an enigma. Apart from the obvious themes of God and worship, the scenes do not seem to share an obvious link or connection.

The verse from the second book of laws, which is canonically “tollite librum istum, et ponite eum in latere arcae” (‘take this book and put it in the side of the ark’ - Deuteronomy 31:26), is here shortened to “tollite librum hunc, et ponite in arcam”. Although the corresponding illustration is corrupted by damage to the ivory, it is possible to make out the Levite priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant through the desert.

The canonical “crediderunt viri Ninivitae in Deum, et praedicaverunt jejunium, et vestiti sunt saccis” (‘the Ninevites believed in God and proclaimed a fast, and wore sackcloth’ - Jonah 3:5) has also been abbreviated to read: “crediderunt...Ninivitae... et vestiti sunt saccis”. Again the image has been worn away, but the city of Nineveh can be distinguished on a cliff overlooking the sea. In this case, the maker seems to have confused his stories. The prophet Jonah was ordered by God to go to the inland city of Nineveh to preach (Jonah 1:1) but instead went to the port at Joppa and boarded the boat that led him to the mouth of the famous whale (Jonah 1:17).

Bead 9

Bead 10

Bead 11

The third quotation appears as it does in the Bible: “Nabuchodonosor rex fecit statuam auream” (‘King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue’ - Daniel 3:1). This line begins the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s great statue of gold, which his Jewish advisors refused to worship. For this slight, he ordered them to be burned alive, a punishment from which the Lord saved them (Daniel 3:28). The corresponding scene on the bead shows the king’s statue, which appears to be of a woman and, interestingly, to have been erected on cliffs overlooking the sea. The sentence from which the quotation is taken actually ends by naming the statue’s location as “the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon”, making the insistence on depicting the scenes in coastal settings strange.

Bead 11 –

The eleventh and final bead on the rosary (14mm diameter) also bears three Old Testament scenes, once more taken from disparate books.

Chronologically, the first scene shows six Israelites, wearing wildly anachronous hats, standing around a fire pit roasting an animal. It is captioned with the verse: “et edent carnes festinanter illa assas igni” (‘And they will hurriedly eat meat roasted on the fire’ - Exodus 12:8). The original adverb ‘nocte’ (‘by night’) has been replaced with ‘festinanter’ (‘hurriedly’). A few verses later, in Exodus 12:11, God does tell Moses that the Israelites will eat ‘festinanter’, but it is not apparent why the artist has chosen to substitute the word here. It is also interesting that he seems to have set the scene in the desert, as if after the flight from Egypt, when in reality God is explaining the Passover feast, which is held before the Israelites fled to the sands of Sinai.

The next scene shows Ezekiel’s vision of himself in the Valley of Dry Bones, during which the bones of the dead are brought to life once more, symbolizing both the resurrection of the dead and the restoration of the house of Israel after the Bablyonian captivity. The caption describes the prophet’s vision: “et accesserunt ossa ad ossa, unumquodque ad iuncturam suam” (‘They came together, bone to bone, each to its own joint’ - Ezekiel 37:7). There is also a speech banner on the illustration, showing Ezekiel to be addressing the bones: “ossa, audite verbum Domini” (‘bones, hear the word of God’ - Ezekiel 37:4), although an adjective found in the original verse has been omitted.

The third quotation around the lower pole reads: “post haec super terram visus est et cuas hom”..., an interpretation of the verse: post haec in terris visus est, et cum hominibus conversatus est (‘After this he was seen on earth, and conversed with men’ - Baruch 3:38). While the truncation of the quotation can be attributed to lack of space, the decision to replace the canonical ‘in terris’ (‘on the earth’) with ‘super terram’ (‘above the earth’) is inexplicable, especially with its theological implications.

Bead 9

Bead 10

Bead 11

The scene shown above the verse depicts Baruch seated in front of a small audience (Baruch 1:3), a banner extending from his mouth reading: “sed qui ?os novit sapientiam”. This quotation cannot be found, either complete or paraphrased, in the Vulgate Latin Bible. The closest verse, semantically and linguistically, is: sed qui scit universa novit eam, et adinvenit eam prudentia (‘but he who knows [knowledge] knows all things, and found her through his own wisdom...’ - Baruch 3:32), with ‘sapitentiam’ potentially serving as a synonym for ‘prudentia’.

Provenance and Rarity

The only known rosary that can be definitively attributed to Antonio Spano is held in the Cathedral of Constance, having been owned by, and likely made for, Jacob Fugger, Bishop of Constance (1604-1626), a scion of the extraordinarily wealthy banking family. “The Fugger family were among the largest book collectors in central Europe of the sixteenth century. Holdings from the Fuggers’s collections are now among the treasured possessions of the Bavarian State Library in Munich, the Austrian National Library in Vienna, and the Vatican Library in Rome … The Fugger libraries were investments in education and learning; they represent the progressive turn of the family, which had become wealthy in commerce, towards learned and literary interests” (Haberlein).

The original owners of the present rosary may have been another wealthy and prominent family: the Boncompagni, from which hailed a number of historic figures, including numerous bishops, cardinals and Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585), who commissioned Ignazio Danti to paint the Vatican’s famous 120 metre Gallery of Maps (1580-1583). When the family migrated from Saxony to Italy in the tenth century, they changed their name from the Germanic Dragon von Saxon to Boncompagni, meaning ‘good friend’. Nonetheless, later records indicate an attempt to honour their true name with the addition of ‘Dragoni’. It is unsurprising, then, that the family symbol is a dragon.

The celestial globe that forms the first bead of this rosary displays two coats of arms; one is certainly the Boncompagni dragon, and the other perhaps a lion rampant. Notably, the former shows only the dragon on a decorative shield, not combined with the three stripes that characterise the coat of arms of the famous Boncompagni-Ludovisi branch of the family formed later.

Among the most prominent members of the family was Giacomo Boncompagni (1548-1612), the illegitimate son of Gregory XIII and a great patron of the arts, who sponsored many artists, writers and composers. In 1575, King Philip II of Spain, who was also Spano’s patron, named Giacomo commander-in-chief of the Spanish armies in Lombardy and Piedmont. His wife, Constanza Sforza, was the daughter of the Count of Santa Fiora, whose coat of arms displays a lion rampant holding a quince.

These facts all point to Giacomo Boncompagni as the original owner, and perhaps commissioner, of this rosary.

Whether the rosary was made for Boncompagni by Spano himself or a different artist, it is not clear; nor is it obvious whether, if Spano, these beads preceded or followed the Fugger rosary. What is evident is that one undoubtedly informed the other, and given that the mistakes in the Latin found on the present rosary are, in general, not found on that in Constance, it seems most likely that latter was made after the former, replicating its design and correcting (most of!) the inscriptions.

It may therefore be the case that it was made for Giacomo Boncompagni, and that it went with the Italian to Madrid during one of his visits to his patron there. Present at Philip’s court was Antonio Spano and, on occasion, representatives of the Fugger family, with whom the Spanish king held numerous financial contracts. And so it may have come about that Spano was commissioned to make a similar rosary for the Jacob Fugger who would later become Bishop of Constance, correcting the erroneous Latin as he did so.

Scientific Analysis

Extensive laboratory examination of the Boncompagni Rosary has “confirmed the rosary’s material as an animal product consisting of the mineral hydroxyapatite, thus ivory, tusk, bone or tooth. Microscopic examination “included visual study for surface features that might complement the results of the material analysis. However, no features characteristic of particular types of material were noted - no Schreger lines (features characteristic of elephant ivory), dentine rings (characteristic of killer or sperm whale), secondary dentine or cementum rings (characteristic of walrus) or other identifying features were observed... Only bone can be ruled out, due to the lack of visible pore structure present on the surface of the bead.

“The radiocarbon date of the sample material removed from the bead was determined as 512 years b.p. ±26 years. After calibration, this yielded a date range of 1397-1446 CE at 95.4% probability. It is important to note that the dates determined by this technique correspond to the age of the animal from which it was taken when the material was formed; that is, for example, elephant tusks are formed over the lifetime of the animal, in rings, similar to how a tree grows in rings. Material from different locations from a single tusk taken from an elephant of significant age will have different ages; each of which will represent the year/s in which that material was produced by the animal, as a measure of the atmospheric carbon imbibed in those year/s. Equally, such materials will undergo wear during an animal’s lifetime. As noted, the type of animal the material originates from could not be determined.

“In consideration of these factors, it may be suggested that the material could have first been available for use either:

• At the earliest, not much before circa 1400, if 3 years are added to the earliest date of 1397 under the assumption that some time for trade and supply of the material to the craftsman should be added.

• At the latest, not much after circa 1449 (again adding 3 years to the latest date in the range, 1446).

“It should also be noted that radiocarbon dating cannot provide information regarding the date in which a material was actually worked, only the dates after which it would have been available. Thus, given the data obtained, we may say that the bead may plausibly have been carved from the 15th century onwards.”

Having been in private hands for over four centuries, the Boncompagni Rosary is a new discovery that contributes not only to Spano’s extant body of work, but also to the understanding of late-sixteenth and earlyseventeenth century devotional objects.

SRIMOTIRAMA

[Sanskrit turiya-yantra]

Publication [Northern India, 1784-1785].

Description

Hardwood board engraved on both sides, inscriptions inlaid with silver, with three metal pins, damaged, and rotating metal disc to verso, with bone border and metal bar along upper edge.

€125,000

“by the command of King of Kings Srikirttibamba, the master artisan named Srimotirama crafted [this] excellent instrument”

The Quadrant

Over three millennia ago, the quadrant emerged in northern India, where it was used to observe a solar eclipse. The instrument, which could be used to measure angles up to 90 degrees and thereby calculate data including longitude, latitude and time, is known as a quadrant since it is essentially a quarter of its more complex brother, the astrolabe.

Medieval Islamic scholars, learned in the arts of astronomy and astrology would later develop a number of variants, namely, the sine quadrant, the universal quadrant, the horary quadrant and the astrolabe quadrant. In 1017 Persian polymath Al-Biruni travelled to India, bringing with him a number of scientific instruments; his treatise on the land’s culture and religion, known simply as ‘India’, mentions a now-lost manual on the astrolabe that the author claims to have written in Sanskrit verse.

In the twelfth century, Indian astronomer and mathematician Bhaskaracharya wrote a treatise in Sanskrit verse, the Siddhanta Shiromani, in which he discusses the manufacture and use of a variety of scientific instruments, including the quadrant, or turiya-yantra. It is likely that the turiya-yantra was manufactured in India during the subsequent centuries by skilled Hindu craftsmen following the designs of astronomers. The present item is an example of one such instrument, engraved on a wooden board with a metal bar along the upper edge from which the it could be suspended vertically.

Dating

The inscription along the circular arc of the quadrant reads “munyabhravāraikamite śakābde”, using the Sanskrit bhūtasamkhyā system, by which numerical values are recorded using associated nouns. The root “muny” refers to the number seven; ‘muni’ means ‘sage’ as there were seven sages who authored the Vedas. “Abhra”, meaning ‘space’, represents zero. “Vara”, which means ‘day’ in Sanskrit, also represents the number seven. Finally, “ika” (‘eka’) means one. Thus, when read backwards, the year 1707 is given, with the following word, “śakābde”, showing that it is of the Śaka era. When converted into the years of the Gregorian calendar, this produces a date of AD 1784 to 1785.

Attribution

The inscription also states that a craftsman named Śrīmotirāma made the instrument for King Śrīkīrttibamba. While ‘Śrīkīrttibamba’ adheres to the convention of Sanskritized royal names, adopted by rulers of regions in which Indian culture was influential, we have been unable to identify a late-eighteenth century figure who went by the name. It is possible that the king may have reigned over one of the smaller kingdoms in northern India. Likewise, we have been unable to trace the particular craftsman responsible for the instrument.

Recto

The quadrant (225mm) is graduated along the outer edge of the arc into 90 degrees, with the inner-edge labelling each group of five degrees from number one to 15. The main area of the quadrant is divided into 30 columns and 30 rows; the former are labelled numerically along the upper edge of the quadrant, and the latter in the thirteenth column. An arc leading from the twelfth row to the twelfth column bisects the quadrant (Daniel do you have any idea what this would have been used for?). An inscription is engraved along the outer edge of the quadrant’s arc.

There are three pin-holes in the quadrant. One is found at the centre of the wooden board, through which a short nail would have been fixed and the board angled in such a way that the shadow of the nail on the graduations shows the zenith distance of the Sun at any time. The position of the shadow on certain days can be used to calculate the obliquity of the ecliptic. Another hole at the corner of the quadrant has the remnants of the pin from which a plumb line would be suspended. By moving this plumb line across the board, data could be collected for the calculation of a variety of information, including the time of day. The final pin hole is found one square into the main area of the quadrant from the corner, which may have been for the attachment of a viewing tube.

Verso

On the back of the quadrant is engraved a large circle (230mm), graduated within by a number of concentric rings. The outer edge is divided into sixty equal units labelled with Sanksrit numerals from one to 60. The same divisions, unlabelled, are replicated in three of the inner rings. Indian astronomy and astrology is tranditionally based on a sexagesimal system. The day was divided into 60 parts, each called a ghatikā, and the outermost divisions of the circle may represent these.

Two additional inner rings group these 60 graduations into 12 sets of five, labelled on the innermost ring with the Sanskrit names for the signs of the Zodiac:

mithunah - Gemini

vrsa - Taurus

mesa - Aries

mīnah - Pisces

kumbha - Aquarius

makara - Capricorn

dhanuh - Sagittarius

vrścika - Scorpio

tulā - Libra

kanya - Virgo

simha - Leo

karka - Cancer

At the centre of the inner circle, which is bisected by a straight line, is a rotating metal disc to which a plumb line could be affixed and moved around the entire circumference of the circle.

Kussenkast.

Publication [The Netherlands, c.1670].

Description

A large solid oak cabinet, surmounted by a straight entablature, with characteristic frieze, architrave, and projecting cornice set with three lion’s masks; the front with two doors decorated with fine rosewood, ebony, and ebonised marquetry, in a strict architectural format of scrolling foliage, flanked by half round pilasters with carved capitals - enclosing the cabinet with a single oak shelf - and each side, with rectangular panels set with moulded corniches, the lower front is set with two drawers each with original wooden handles; all seated on three original ball feet, restored and refinished.

Dimensions 2090 by 2400mm (82.25 by 94.5 inches).

References Schilder, ‘Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica’, Volume VII.

€50,000

Cabinet de la routte marinesque

A magnificent and elegant kussenkast, typical of the late-seveteenth century Dutch style. The title-page of the French translation of Lucas Waghenaer’s celebrated ‘Spieghel der Zeevaerdt’ - ‘Thresorerie ou cabinet de la routte marinesque’ (1600), illustrates just such a cabinet for the display and safekeeping of the most important atlases, and travel accounts: the perfect metaphor for Waghenaer’s own maritime atlas, which was a pioneering synthesis of information gathered from manuscript charts, rutters, ships’ logs, all of which he systematized for the first time, illustrated with informative and beautifully engraved charts.

“Waghenaer’s work was a milestone in the development of West European navigation. His charts brought together the pictorial silhouettes that had been a standard feature of traditional rutters used by pilots, and combined these with updated coastal outlines. In addition, there were compass roses and lines of navigational direction, as well as soundings to help navigators make their way into ports and havens” (Schilder).