The EARLIEST DATED ITALIAN GLOBE by Mario Cartaro. It is preceded only by Livio Sanuto’s undated globe from 1564-1574. The engraving is ‘among the best Italian work of the era’ (Shirley). The early history of globe production in Europe is sparsely populated. Northern Europe produced the first including those of Waldseemuller, Schoner, Mercator, Frisius and de Mongenet. However it was the Dutch later in the sixteenth century under van Langeren who began the great period of globe production. Little is known of Cartaro, he was born in Viterbo and began engraving in Rome in the early 1560s. He worked for himself and for other publishers.

The terrestrial globe is based on Giacomo Gastaldi’s c.1561 woodcut map of the world, which is known in only a unique example at the British Library. It is the first dated globe to show the strait of Anian separating America and Asia, and to name Canada. Both features are taken from Gastaldi’s map, where they appeared for the first time. Unlike the Gastaldi, Cartaro does depict New Guinea correctly as an island.

This is an example of the second state with North America extended above the Arctic circle and with the addition of a new lake marked ‘Cani’. The gores at the Newberry Library cited below are in the first state. Judging by the number of extant examples the globes were not successful for Cartaro. Surviving globes are located as follows:

The only institutional pair are in poor condition at the Osservatorio del Collegio Romano, Rome (Stevenson census)

Christie’s London 1 June 1999 lot 8

There is a pair of celestial and terrestrial gores sheets in the Newberry Library (Shirley).

Celestial only:

Osservatorio del Collegio Romano, Rome (Stevenson census)

Museo di Strumenti Antichi, Florence (Stevenson census)

Terrestrial only:

Library of Mr. Reed, New York (Stevenson census)

This example

Shirley (1993) 137, plate 116; Stevenson (1921) II, pp. 167-169, fig. 69; Suarez (1992) 33, plates XII-XIII.