The Renaissance genius
Leonardo Da Vinci
is the author of the oldest globe that includes the representation of a part of America,
dated 1504
and made with
ostrich eggs
, its discoverer and owner, the Belgian Stefaan Missinne, maintained in Rome.
The expert, asked if he was sure that it was by Leonardo, given the many works in circulation attributed to the master, responded:
"One hundred percent."
Missinne came across this sphere in 2012 at an event in London for the Royal Geographical Society, when someone (who she did not identify) told her that he had a globe "from the 19th century" in which, however, the American continent did not fully appear.
The Renaissance genius is the author of the oldest globe that includes the representation of a part of America and is made with ostrich eggs (ANSA).
"I responded that I wanted to see it, he showed it to me and it took me five minutes to decide that I wanted to buy it," recalls the collector, while holding a replica of his most coveted piece in his hand.
So he bought it (for a price he refused to disclose), put it in safekeeping in Austria and then studied it for six years, determining that the author was Leonardo and publishing his conclusions in his book
"The Da Vinci Globe"
(2018). ), published by the independent house "Cambridge Scholars Publishing".
The object, which fits in the palm of a hand, is made with the flatter half of
two ostrich eggs
and on its surface the part of the world that was known and even part of America was engraved, just twelve years after the discovery of the continent,
in 1492.
The drawing is practically the same as the one that appears on the copper Lenox globe, kept in the New York Library and considered
one of the oldest in the world.
A masterful globe
The sphere shows Europe, part of Asia and Africa and
also South America
, and up to the meridian of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which in 1494 divided the area of Spanish and Portuguese influence.
The American subcontinent appears partially and above it you can read
"Nuovus Mundus"
(New World, in Latin), so Missinne calculates that it is the globe that previously represented this land.
The expert reviews the reasons that push him to believe that this work of "incalculable value" for him was carried out by genius.
Its discoverer and owner, the Belgian Stefaan Missinne (EFE).
Firstly, he points out that it was made by
someone left-handed
and was engraved with an alloy with arsenic with which he maintained the reddish color of metals such as copper.
Furthermore, the collector points out that the sphere respects in its scale (1:80,000,0000) the calculation that Da Vinci made at that time of the diameter of the Earth, of 7,000 nautical miles.
On the other hand, Missinne claims to have found a sketch of this map in the
"Codex Leicester",
a compendium of his manuscripts in the British Library, which until now was believed to represent the moon.
The sphere shows Europe, part of Asia and Africa and also South America, and up to the meridian of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which in 1494 divided the area of Spanish and Portuguese influence (ANSA).
As well as a note from 1504 in the "Codex Atlantico" that reads
"My world map with Giovanni Benci"
, interpreting it as a reminder from the master so that he would not forget to recover this object.
Finally, the collector adds that another proof that pushes him to support Leonardo's authorship is that
the globe is not finished,
true to his reputation as a restless intellectual: the names of the oceans or the parallels or meridians do not appear, something essential, since the sphere was, in theory, "a scientific object."
EFE Agency.
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