Vincenzo Coronelli was an Italian friar, cosmographer, cartographer, and publisher, famous for his creation of two magnificent globes for Louis XIV completed in 1688. In 1693 he published these gores (curved sections intended to be applied onto a sphere) for a smaller celestial globe. They were printed in Paris by Jean Baptiste Nolin, the engraver to the King of France.

Coronelli designed the globe to make the observer feel as though they were looking into the sky from earth. The engraving is incredibly detailed with the names of the constellations written in Latin, Italian, French, Greek, Arabic. Comets are included with little circles of stars and the dates when they appeared. Despite the elegant and accomplished production, Coronelli’s lack of attention to scientific details places it as both a high point and low point of globe production in the late 17th century.