Hunt-Lenox Globe

Narrator: Hunt-Lenox Globe. Circa 1508. Copper. About 5 inches in diameter. The globe is encircled by a ring that attaches it to a circular base, or stand. In all, including base, the globe stands 7 inches high. 

This is a globe showing a map of the world. The land masses appear as darker brown against the lighter-brown seas. The countries and continents are not shown as they are now known to be. For example, the globe includes South America and the Caribbean islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, but North America is absent.

The globe is inscribed with labels. For example, the South American continent has various regional labels such as “Mundus Novus” and “Terra Brazil.” 

On the southeast corner of Asia is written in capital letters “HIC SUNT DRACONES.”

Interpretive commentary follows.

Anna Deavere Smith: Though small, this globe—one of the oldest known globes of the earth—is full of surprises for those who look closely. Michael Inman, Curator of Rare Books:

Michael Inman: You will see a great deal of geographic content, details, mountain ranges, rivers. You'll see ships being depicted, caravels very similar to the ones on which Columbus undertook his initial voyage to the Americas. You'll see sea monsters, very fancifully depicted.

What you do not see, however, is the North American landmass.

Anna Deavere Smith: This globe was created only a decade or two after Columbus’s first voyage.

Michael Inman: So, it really points to the fact that still at that time, while it was known to explorers and certain members of the public in Europe that North America was there, that knowledge still wasn't widely disseminated.  

Anna Deavere Smith: The globe is a tangible link to that extraordinary historical moment.

Michael Inman: And to me, it speaks to the sense of wonder that Europeans at that time must have felt as these initial voyages were being taken to the Americas. It speaks to the larger rebirth of knowledge that the Renaissance embodied.

And yet at the same time, when I look at it, I can't help but be saddened as well, because it points to that earliest period of European exploration in the Americas. And it makes me always mindful of what then was to come, particularly in terms of the treatment of indigenous peoples in the Americas—and certainly with the rise of slavery. So my excitement, when looking at the globe, is always tempered to an extent by the knowledge of also what was to come over the ensuing five centuries.