Closely bound up with the issue of the UNIL globes’ authenticity was that of their origin. When and in what way did the globes come to the University of Lausanne before emerging from oblivion at the dawn of the 21st century ?
To answer this question, Gilbert Coutaz of the Archives of the Canton of Vaud (ACV) and Jocelyne Hefti and Hubert Villard of the Cantonal and University Library of Lausanne at Dorigny (BCUL-D) sifted through the archives and inventories of the university, the canton, the university libraries in Dorigny and the Place de la Riponne in Lausanne and the History of Science Museum in Geneva.
Sadly, their search was in vain: how the globes arrived in Lausanne remains a total mystery to this day.
How did they come to Lausanne ?
1976
Bernard Hauck, a professor of astronomy at UNIL, remembers having moved the globes to Dorigny from the old premises of the Observatory on Chemin des Grandes-Roches […]
Inconclusive evidence
2005
Labels pasted on the underside of the two stands suggest the globes might have a connection to the History of Science Museum in Geneva. Yet there is no trace of the globes in its inventories […]
An intriguing theory
2005
Suppose the globes came to Lausanne thanks to one of the great scientific figures of the 18th century ? Unfortunately, this theory cannot be proved […]