The terrestrial and celestial globes of Gerardus Mercator unquestionably marked one of the major strides of the 16th century towards better understanding the Earth and the Cosmos. It took a figure like Mercator, a brilliant humanist, to raise the art of globemaking to such a high standard of achievement. Fewer than 30 copies of the globes survive today. Here the University of Lausanne presents its own pair, recently retrieved from oblivion.

picto-globes

The pair

The Lausanne globes are a matched pair, one terrestrial and the other celestial.

Terrestrial Globe

Terrestrial Globe

The terrestrial globe produced in 1541 is a scale model of the Earth.

Celestial Globe

Celestial Globe

The celestial globe produced in 1551 is a map of the Cosmos centred on the Earth.