Terrestrial and celestial globes; their history and ... - 24grammata.com

Last Quarter of the Sixteenth Century.
to the earher notions, that a great body of water separated
Asia from the northern continent, in the spread of which
notion Mercator seems to have exerted a dominating influ-
ence. In the third quarter of the century the globe maps indicate
that a belief in the independent position of the New
World had again found very general acceptance, although
there appeared now and then an expression in the maps that
the theory of an Asiatic connection still lingered. In this
third quarter it was the Italian globe makers who were the
most active, yet it must be admitted that the majority of
the globes produced in these years in the peninsula were not
of striking importance. In the literature of the period, refer-
ences to globes which were constructed, and which appear
to have been well known, are not infrequent, but one is
inclined to a belief, based upon these references, and upon
those globes which are extant, that time has destroyed the
best of them.
The records of the last quarter of the century, of which
we come now to speak in this chapter, seem to show a decline
of interest in globe making among the Italians, the exam-
ples of their work left to us being exceedingly few. We note
a rising interest and activity in globe making in the North
in this period, which reaches a climax during the early years
of the seventeenth century in the splendid work given out
by the great masters of the Netherlands. A well-merited
fame especially crowns the labors of members of the Van
Langren, the Blaeu, and the Hondius families.^
Although remembered chiefly for his part
in the con-
struction of the famous Strassburg cathedral clock, Conrad
Dasypodius (15301600) can also claim a place among the
globe makers of his day, that is, of the period we now have
under consideration.^ He was the son of Petrus Dasypodius,
a native of Frauenfeld in Switzerland, whose name origi-
nally was Rauhfuss or Hasenfuss, and who for some years
held a position as professor of the Greek language in Zurich.
In the year 1530 he removed to Strassburg to accept a similar
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