Globenmuseum | |
![]() Palais Mollard, home of the Globe Museum. | |
![]() | |
Established | 1956 |
---|---|
Location | Herrengasse 9 1010 Wien Austria |
Coordinates | 48°12′33.5″N16°21′25″E / 48.209306°N 16.35694°E |
Type | Globe collection |
Collection size | 600 |
Website | Globe Museum (in English) |
The Globe Museum (German : Globenmuseum) is a museum in the Palais Mollard, Vienna, Austria, part of the Austrian National Library. It was opened in 1956, and is the only public museum in the world devoted to globes, being three-dimensional models of Earth or other celestial bodies, or spherical representations of the celestial sphere.
As early as the 19th century, there was a globe collection within the Vienna Imperial Library, the forerunner to the Austrian National Library. The globes in this collection were acquired either as purchases or as gifts (for example, Vincenzo Coronelli created two globes especially for Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor from 1658 to 1705, with each globe having an engraved portrait of the Emperor and an inscription).
In 1921, the geographer, Eugen Oberhummer, conducted an inventory of the collection and found eight globes of various sizes (both terrestrial and celestial), and two armillary spheres. In 1922, these globes were transferred to the National Library's map collection where, by 1948, there were already 28 globes. In the annual report of the director of the collection in 1948, it was noted that the globes were among the collection's most rarely used items.
In 1956, the National Library opened the Globe Museum with a total of 63 exhibits. Its foundation collection was a combination of the imperial collection and the collections of the International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes, and the cartographer Robert Haardt, who had been instrumental in the museum's establishment.
The museum was originally housed in the Augustinian tract of the Hofburg in Josefsplatz, Vienna, as part of the National Library's map collection. In 1970 and 1986, the museum was allocated new rooms within the same tract. [1]
During the museum's first 30 years, its collection grew to 145 items by purchase, gift and exchange with other museums. By 1996, the museum had 260 exhibits. Since the end of 2005 the museum has been accommodated at the Palais Mollard in the Herrengasse.
There are now approximately 600 terrestrial and celestial globes in the collection, and around 200 of them are constantly on display. The majority of them date from before 1850.
The oldest item in the collection is the terrestrial globe of Gemma Frisius (circa 1536). Highlights are the globes of Vincenzo Coronelli (110 cm (43 in) diameter) and a pair of globes by Gerard Mercator from 1541 and 1551. [1] Further objects in the collection include armillary spheres, planetary globes, astronomical instruments, and instruments in which a globe represents a component, such as planet machines (orreries), tellurions and lunariums.
An armillary sphere is a model of objects in the sky, consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centered on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features, such as the ecliptic. As such, it differs from a celestial globe, which is a smooth sphere whose principal purpose is to map the constellations. It was invented separately first in ancient China during the 4th century BC and ancient Greece during the 3rd century BC, with later uses in the Islamic world and Medieval Europe.
A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model globe of Earth is called a terrestrial globe. A model globe of the celestial sphere is called a celestial globe.
Vincenzo Maria Coronelli was an Italian Franciscan friar, cosmographer, cartographer, publisher, and encyclopedist known in particular for his atlases and globes. He spent most of his life in Venice.
The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is a public art school in Vienna, Austria.
Astronomy in China has a long history stretching from the Shang dynasty, being refined over a period of more than 3,000 years. The ancient Chinese people have identified stars from 1300 BCE, as Chinese star names later categorized in the twenty-eight mansions have been found on oracle bones unearthed at Anyang, dating back to the mid-Shang dynasty. The core of the "mansion" system also took shape around this period, by the time of King Wu Ding.
Jost Bürgi, active primarily at the courts in Kassel and Prague, was a Swiss clockmaker, a maker of astronomical instruments and a mathematician.
The Hofburg is the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty. Located in the centre of Vienna, it was built in the 13th century and expanded several times afterwards. It also served as the imperial winter residence, as Schönbrunn Palace was the summer residence. Since 1946, it is the official residence and workplace of the president of Austria.
The Austrian National Library is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of Vienna. Since 2005, some of the collections have been relocated within the Baroque structure of the Palais Mollard-Clary. Founded by the Habsburgs, the library was originally called the Imperial Court Library ; the change to the current name occurred in 1920, following the end of the Habsburg Monarchy and the proclamation of the Austrian Republic. The library complex includes four museums, as well as multiple special collections and archives.
Palais Mollard-Clary is a Baroque palace in Vienna, Austria. It is located in the first district Innere Stadt, at Herrengasse 9.
Museo Galileo, the former Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza is located in Florence, Italy, in Piazza dei Giudici, along the River Arno and close to the Uffizi Gallery. The museum, dedicated to astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei, is housed in Palazzo Castellani, an 11th-century building which was then known as the Castello d’Altafronte.
Ferdinand Augustin Haller von Hallerstein, also known as August Allerstein or by his Chinese name Liu Songling, was a Jesuit missionary and astronomer from Carniola. He was active in 18th-century China and spent 35 years at the imperial court of the Qianlong Emperor as the head of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau and Board of Mathematics. He created an armillary sphere with rotating rings at the Beijing Observatory and was the first demographer in China who precisely calculated the exact number of Chinese population of the time (198,214,553). He also participated in Chinese cartography, serving concurrently as a missionary, "cultural ambassador" and mandarin between 1739 and 1774.
The Erdapfel is a terrestrial globe produced by Martin Behaim from 1490–1492. The Erdapfel is the oldest surviving terrestrial globe. It is constructed of a laminated linen ball in two halves, reinforced with wood and overlaid with a map painted on gores by Georg Glockendon. The map was drawn on paper, which was pasted on a layer of parchment around the globe.
The Honcheonsigye is an astronomical clock designated as South Korean national treasure number 230.
The Esperanto Museum and Collection of Planned Languages, commonly known as the Esperanto Museum, is a museum for Esperanto and other constructed languages in Vienna, Austria. It was founded in 1927 by Hofrat Hugo Steiner and was incorporated into the Austrian National Library as an independent collection in 1928. Today, it is a museum, library, documentation center, and archive. It accommodates the largest collection of constructed languages in the world and a linguistic research library for language planning. Its catalogue is available online.
The Theatermuseum is a federal museum of national theatre history. Since 1991 it is situated in the Palais Lobkowitz in Vienna.
The Ephesos Museum in Vienna displays antiquities from the city of Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey. Begun in the late 19th century, the collection includes original works of sculpture and architecture, and belongs to the Kunsthistorisches Museum.
A map collection or map library is a storage facility for maps, usually in a library, archive, or museum, or at a map publisher or public-benefit corporation, and the maps and other cartographic items stored within that facility.
Caspar Vopel (1511–1561) was a German cartographer and instrument maker. Born in Medebach, he studied mathematics and medicine at the University of Cologne in 1526–1529. He taught mathematics at the Gymnasium of Cologne and in the early 1530s established a workshop to produce celestial and terrestrial globes, armillary spheres, sundials, quadrants and astrolabes. An exemplar of Vopel’s 1536 globe is held at Tenri University Library, Nara. In 1545 he began to prepare maps and atlases. His mappemonde of 1545 is titled NOVA ET INTEGRA VNIVERSALISQVE ORBIS TOTIVS IVXTA GERMANVM NEOTERICORVM TRADITIONEM DESCRIPTIO . Vopel is sometimes credited with the promotion of the ancient asterism Coma Berenices to constellation status.
The Papyrus Collection of the Austrian National Library, also known as the Rainer Collection and Vienna Papyrus Collection, is a papyrus collection of the Austrian National Library at Hofburg palace in Vienna. It contains around 180,000 objects overall. It is one of the most significant collections in papyrology, containing writings documenting 3 millennia of the history of Egypt from 1500 BCE–1500 CE: Ancient Egypt, Hellenistic Egypt, Roman Egypt, and Egypt during Muslim rule. It includes a specialist library of around 19,500 books and journals as well. The Austrian National Library preserves and restores the stored papyri and facilitates scholarly research and publication based on these ancient documents.
The International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes is a non-profit academic organization devoted to the analysis, restoration and comprehensive study of terrestrial and celestial globes and other cosmographical instruments, such as armillary spheres and planetaria, mainly made before 1850.
Coordinates: 48°12′33.5″N16°21′55″E / 48.209306°N 16.36528°E