The Da Vinci Globe, dated 1504, the oldest known globe to show the New World.

 

Dated to the early 1500s, the globe was likely crafted in Florence, Italy, from the lower halves of two ostrich eggs. It is engraved with then-new and vague details about the Americas garnered from European explorers like Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. It is also decorated with monsters, intertwining waves and even a shipwrecked sailor. He determined that the grapefruit-sized globe was made around 1504 and was likely used to cast the famous copper Lenox globe housed at the New York Public Library, which, until now, had been thought to be the oldest globe to show the Americas, dated to 1510. Of the 71 names on the ostrich egg globe, just seven lie in the Western Hemisphere. North America, which is represented as a group of scattered islands, is totally unlabeled and the globe includes one sentence: "HIC SVNT DRACONES," or "Here are the Dragons," according to the Washington Map Society. The only three names shown in South America are Mundus Novus ("New World"), Terra de Brazil, and Terra Sanctae Crucis ("Land of the Holy Cross"). Though the maker of the globe remains unknown, researches suspects the globe may be linked to the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci.