Vincenzo Maria Coronelli's Atlante Veneto and the Diagrammatic Tradition of Cosmography

Abstract

The Atlante veneto of Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718) might seem a distinctly odd choice of subject for an article in a collection focused on astronomical diagrams of the period 1450-1650. Coronelli himself, though familiar to historians of cartography, is not an especially well-known figure in the history of astronomy. He is probably best known to readers of this journal as the producer of enormous globes, terrestrial as well as celestial, an accomplishment celebrated in the title of the Internationale Coronelli-Gesellschaft fur Globenkunde, or International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes, based in Vienna. But globes are not naturally classed as diagrams, even if many of the same techniques were employed in producing them as were required for the printing of flat illustrations. An atlas, moreover, unless explicitly labelled a celestial atlas, is obviously more a geographical than an astronomical work, and the date of Coronelli's - 1691 - places it some decades after the nominal terminus ante quern of this special issue. In the course of this essay, however, I hope to show that Coronelli's work is indeed of relevance to the topic at hand. The Atlante veneto should be considered, I argue, a work of cosmography, the Renaissance subject that encompassed both geography and astronomy. It is notable for containing a number of astronomical images, including figures representing worldsystems, celestial planispheres, and a composite image, the Idea dell'universo, which incorporates multiple distinct tables and diagrams. The work as a whole, but the latter image especially, can be used as a lens through which to consider the preceding two centuries and more of the diagrammatic traditions of astronomy and cosmography.Atlantic Cosmography: A GenealogyEven though we are used to thinking of atlases primarily as vehicles of cartographic material, it is still the case today that they may contain a substantial section that is cosmological and astronomical: illustrated text on the origins of the universe, the formation of galaxies, stars and planets, and particularly the origins of the Earth and its place and companions in the solar system. Such a section may even go on to discuss the geological and atmospheric development of our planet, the shaping of continents, tides, and weather systems, phenomena such as the seasons, and indeed the origins and evolution of life on Earth.1 Material of this kind may be considered geographical in the broadest sense, yet its presence can also be explained by the emergence of the earliest printed atlases as works of cosmography rather than geography. The first part of Mercator's atlas was posthumously published in 1595 under the title Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fab ricati figura', this title was retained for the subsequent editions supervised by Jodocus Hondius, and later in the seventeenth-century the Blaeu atlas appeared (in its Latin form) under the title of Atlas maior, sive cosmographia blaviana (1662). Unlike these predecessors, Coronelli's Atlante veneto was not named so as to explicitly reveal its cosmographie nature, but its allegiance to the cosmographie enterprise was nevertheless made evident on its title-page in two distinct ways. First, its author was identified there as the Cosmographer of the Most Serene Republic, and Professor of Geography of the University of Venice.2 Second, it is indicated that it was produced under the auspices of, and for the use of, the Cosmographie Academy of the Argonauts, a society founded by Coronelli primarily in order to patronize and support his work.3 This academy is often referred to as the first geographic society in the world, 4 but had Coronelli wished to identify it as purely geographical there would have been no obstacle to his doing so. Instead the society, like the Atlante veneto, was deliberately and consciously presented as cosmographie in the range of its concerns.Atlases were not the only kind of cosmographie text produced in early modern Europe, nor indeed the first. …