Italian School, 16th century
Eight portions of a terrestrial globe c.1525-50
Pen and ink | RCIN 991393
Italian School, 16th century
Eight portions of a terrestrial globe c.1525-50
Italian School, 16th century
Eight portions of a terrestrial globe c.1525-50
Italian School, 16th century
Eight portions of a terrestrial globe c.1525-50
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Two drawings, each of which consists of four octants of a terrestrial globe.
The two drawings are numbered (192 and 193) in the same hand and manner as the Leonardo drawings, and must therefore have come from the Melzi-Leoni album of 550 drawings by Leonardo along with several dozen drawings by Leonardo's associates and followers. But neither the manner of drawing nor the script is Leonardo's; the drawings may possibly be by his pupil and heir Francesco Melzi, but this is far from certain.
When the drawings were thought to be by Leonardo, they were claimed to be the earliest extant maps on which the name 'America' appeared, and they thus had a certain celebrity in the later nineteenth century (eg. R.H.Mayor, A Mappemonde by Leonardo da Vinci, London 1865; M. Fiorini, 'Il mappamondo di Leonardo da Vinci ed altri consimili mappe' in Rivista Geografica Italiana, I, 1894)Provenance
Bequeathed to Francesco Melzi; from whose heirs purchased by Pompeo Leoni, c.1582-90; Thomas Howard, 14th Earl of Arundel, by 1630; Probably acquired by Charles II; Royal Collection by 1690
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