Het Niew Hollandt

Vincenzo Coronelli was a Franciscan friar, mathematician, cosmographer, and mapmaker whose work stands at the centre of late seventeenth-century Venetian cartography. After entering the Franciscan Order as a young man, he expanded his studies from theology to mathematics, astronomy, geography, and engraving. In 1680 he founded the Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti (Cosmographic Academy of the Argonauts), an early geographical society with an international membership of scholars, patrons, and collectors.

In 1681, Coronelli was invited to Paris by Louis XIV to construct two large manuscript globes, one terrestrial and one celestial, each more than four metres in diameter. Completed in 1683, the globes combined current geographical knowledge with elaborate allegorical and decorative programmes. After returning to Venice in 1684, Coronelli established a cartographic workshop at the Convent of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, where he produced globes, maps, and atlases, including the Atlante Veneto, the Isolario, the Libro dei Globi, and the Corso Geografico Universale. This engraved globe gore was originally designed for Coronelli’s printed 42-inch terrestrial globe and was later circulated in atlas-format publications including the Isolario and the Libro dei Globi. The gore focuses on New Holland, labelled in Dutch as Het Niew Hollandt and in Italian as Nuova Hollanda. It is one of the most visually elaborate treatments of Australia, combining Dutch coastal discoveries with inscriptions, ethnographic imagery, animals, vegetation, and a large allegorical group below the map.

The Australian coastline reflects the cumulative results of seventeenth-century Dutch exploration. Coronelli marks Terra di Concordia, corresponding to ’t Landt van Eendracht, associated with Dirk Hartog’s 1616 landfall; Terra d’Edels, linked with Jacob d’Edel’s 1619 voyage; Terra de Leeuwin, associated with the Dutch ship Leeuwin in 1622; and Terra di Pietro Nuyts, recording the 1627 voyage of the ’t Gulden Zeepaert. The western and southern coastlines remain discontinuous, reflecting the fragmentary nature of European knowledge of Australia before the full outline of the continent was established. Coronelli also uses the interior of New Holland as a space for learned speculation. One inscription discusses the possibility that this region might correspond to Marco Polo’s Locach, with references to Pentan and the kingdom of Malaiur. Another considers the debated location of Java Minor, noting different opinions that placed it variously near Sumatra, Sumbawa, or even in relation to New Holland. These inscriptions show Coronelli working across voyage reports, classical and medieval geography, and contemporary Dutch mapping.

The imagery within and below the landmass gives the gore a theatrical character. Palm trees, deer, armed figures, huts, and an elephant procession populate the interior, presenting New Holland through a mixture of ethnographic convention, exoticised natural history, and imaginative geography. Below the map, a large allegorical group of women and putti occupies the lower part of the gore. This decoration turns the sheet from a practical piece of a globe into an image about discovery, abundance, and geographical knowledge. This gore is closely connected with the set of six globe gores showing the eastern sector of the southern world (6), where Het Niew Hollandt and Nuova Hollanda also appear in relation to the Indian Ocean. It also relates to the set of southern and equatorial globe gores (386); the set of Asia globe gores (346); and the South Pole cap (421). Together these records show how Coronelli divided his printed globe into separately engraved sheets, each combining geography, voyage history, textual commentary, and visual ornament for assembly onto a sphere.