Upon entry to Texas Tech's Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, visitors are greeted by a large, glass-contained globe, slightly yellowed with age.
The Coronelli Globe at Texas Tech, a terrestrial globe created by Franciscan monk Vincenzo Coronelli in 1688, is one of four such globes in North America, according to Bruce Cammack, who is the Associate Librarian for Rare Books at the library.
“There are only three known to exist in the United States, outside of Texas Tech’s," Cammack said. "One at the Harriet Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin, one in the Library of Congress, and one in the Hispanic Society in New York City."
According to Cammack, Vincenzo Coronelli was born in Venice, Italy. Known for his work with geography and cartography, Coronelli has been called the "Michelangelo of map-making." According to Cammack, such was the notoriety of Coronelli's cartography skills that he was invited to the court of French king Louis XIV in 1681, where he stayed for two years.
Texas Tech's globe was modeled after a similar one Coronelli presented to Louis. Built 1688, the globe housed by Texas Tech was created with a twin, a celestial globe that illustrated the constellations of the night sky while its terrestrial partner showed the continents, including the New World, according to information presented by French explorer Robert de la Salle. The whereabouts of the celestial globe are unknown, and there are thought to be less than 100 Coronelli globes left in the world.
Little is known about the time after the globe was created until the 1920s, when American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst purchased it. Hearst kept the globe stored in a crate until it was sold in 1941. Harry Stewart and Ralph Moody, both of Dallas, each owned the globe in the 1950s before then-Texas Tech president Grover Murray, brought it to Texas Tech in 1968. Cammack said the globe's survival through the years is truly remarkable.
The globe is made of wood, plaster, and fabric. With a three-and-a-half-foot diameter, the globe is a larger than many other Coronelli creations, and represents much of what was known about the world's geography at the time.
The globe shows California as an island, and Australia's eastern shoreline is missing, as well as depicting an elephant (elephants were thought to inhabit Australia in the 17th century). Although the Mississippi River was navigated by Robert La Salle in 1682, the river is depicted to be too far west. Cammack said the river's mistaken location on the globe could have been a deliberate illustration.
“First of all, La Salle could have been a horrible navigator," Cammack said. "Second of all, the Spanish and the French were contesting over this area, and everything to the East was French, and everything to the West was Spanish. And they could have tried to push it as far west as possible."
The Coronelli Globe began to deteriorate in the 1980s. Because of a varnish on the globe, the once vibrant hand-painted colors began fading. The equator began to bow out. The bottom had also suffered serious damage because of the pressure of the weight of the globe. It was put into storage in 1984.
In the 1990s, former Texas Tech board of regents chair James Sowell came to the Southwest Collection to ask if there was a project he could help with - and Cammack knew exactly what he wanted to work on. Globe conservation expert Doug Stone of Wisconsin was chosen to complete the project. Cammack said the goal was always to preserve, not restore the globe.
"The problem with doing any kind of work like this on any kind of object is that you destroy part of the history as you’re doing the restoration, part of the provenance," Cammack said. "So, he was very careful to document everything he did, even the pieces of plaster, pieces of cloth that he preserved, in order, if somebody wants to go back and do some more research on it, those are available."
Since the restoration, the globe has been a prominent feature of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library. The Coronelli Rotunda in the building was specifically built with the globe in mind.
In 1997, the Coronelli Globe was dedicated to former First Lady Laura Bush.
Tai Kreidler, archivist at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, said the globe symbolizes something special for Texas Tech. Kreidler said former university President Grover Murray's choice to purchase the Coronelli Globe helped to accelerate Texas Tech into the innovative 1960s.
“I can’t help but feel," Kreidler said, "knowing the type of person Grover Murray was, and what he did for the university and his vision on a concrete level, and stitching together various programs, and pushing them out there during his time as president, that the globe symbolized the university’s forward step into the global arena.”
To see the Coronelli Globe for yourself, visit the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at 15th and Detroit Avenue on the Texas Tech campus.
Abigail Arroyos contributed to this report.
