CELESTIAL TABLE GLOBE

The globe is made of twelve printed paper gores, juxtaposed and glued onto a sphere composed of a gypsum-based composite material. The meridian circle and the horizon circle are made of wood and covered with printed paper. The first has the degrees of latitude and the distances from the poles inscribed on it. The horizon circle, instead, features the names of the zodiac with their related symbols and the months of the year, as well as both cardinal and intercardinal points. Three separate cartouches appear on the sphere: one above Gemini, another at the North Pole, and a third between the latter and Perseus. The first contains the inscription: GLOBE CELESTE dans le quel les Etoilles Fixes sont placées comme elles sont apresent suivant les derniers Observatio[ns] des plus Célèbres Astronomes de ce Temps The second, the northernmost, has a worn and difficult-to-read text, which can be summarized as follows: Cassini (Perinaldo, 1625 – Paris, 1712; Italian scientist naturalized French) calculated that the geographic pole describes a circle around the ecliptic pole over 24,800 years; the circle is drawn on the globe and every 15° marks how many years have passed since 1770, when the celestial pole was in this position. The third bears the maker’s heading: A PARIS Chez le Sieur Delamarche géo. Rue du Foin St. Jacq. au Collège de Me. Gervais Across the rest of the surface are depicted the constellations of the so-called “eighth sphere” (the domain of the fixed stars) and the circles that describe it: the equator, the meridian, the Tropic of Cancer, the Tropic of Capricorn, the polar circles and the ecliptic. Two examples of this same edition are held respectively at the Museum of the University of Groningen and the Library of the University of Amsterdam (Van der Krogt P. and Dekker E., Globes from the Western World, London 1993, p. 84 and Van der Krogt P., Old Globes in the Netherlands, Utrecht 1984, p. 101).

• Van der Krogt, P., Old Globes in the Netherlands, p. 101
• Van der Krogt, P. – Dekker, E., Globes from the Western World, London 1993, p. 84.
• Dekker E., et al., Globes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Globes and Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, 1999, pp. 321 per la storia dell’impresa dei Delamarche.