ROSSI, Giuseppe de (1570-1639), After Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612).
Terrestrial Globe.
Diameter 8 inches (20cm).; Overall height 18 inches (46 cm).
Rome, 1615.

The globe made up of 12 engraved globe gores on thick paper, [the geography copied from Jodocus Hondius 1601 globe], very lightly varnished, the gores laid around a heavy plaster sphere. The explanatory cartouche set in the Pacific is identical to the Hondius original, and the second dedicatory cartouche by RossMelbi dedicates the globe to D Paulus Mellinus of Rome. The globe mounted in a later wooden meridian circle with the graticule in manuscript on one face, 18th century wooden Italian style stand, the horizon circle in hexagonal form, and with the horizon and turned wooden central support and base all lightly wormed, the paper surface lightly rubbed. Lacking south polar metal axis spike.

A fine surviving example of an Italian table globe, Rossi's 8 inch globe being one of the first manufactured globes to be sold in Italy, this example likely assembled in the 18th century. Rossi was famous for his copies of Dutch maps and globes, this globe being a direct copy of the Hondius globe in 1615, presumably copied without permission as Hondius has died 3 years before this globe was issued. These small Rossi globes are rare, Stevenson only records one copy of the 1615 Rossi globe (although there is another example in the Correr Museum Venice, and there were probably more around Italy). The globe gores were sold separately by both Giuseppe in 1615, as in this example on thick paper, and by his grandson Domenico around 1700, on thinner paper.

The Rossi family had set up a very successful map and print business, initially in Milan, but Giuseppe moved to Rome around 1600 and established one of the premier Italian map print and globe publishing houses of the 17th and early 18th centuries. Their business benefited from the stream of young rich European noblemen who took the Grand Tour of Italy, and came to Rome as part of their education, purchasing art, books and maps as they travelled, to decorate the new Grand houses that they had built. This globe likely assembled in Rome in the early 18th century and sold to one such nobleman.

References:E. L. Stevenson, Terrestrial and Celestial Globes, New Haven 1921, vol II, p.13; P. van der Krogt, Globi Neerlandici, Utrecht 1993 - The World In Your Hands. An Exhibition of Globes and Planetaria, exhibition's catalogue of Christie's Great Room in London and Museum Boerhaave in Leiden, 1995, p.42, no 4.11.; Sfere del cielo sfere della terra, exhibition's catalogue edited by M. Milansei & R. Schmidt, Correr Museum, Venice 2007, pp. 50 and 59.; Cf. Shirley Mapping of the World 289; Cf. Dekker Globes at Greenwich.