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Globenmuseum

Carrier Bag of Films: The Globe Museum

17 Oct 2021

Carrier Bag of Films: The Globe Museum

Ted Fendt bursts into his own film. All of a sudden, he is standing before us and, since his character doesn’t know what to say, a torrent of words pours out of him. He talks about Vienna, places one should and shouldn’t see. He says the Globe Museum is the place to go.

The Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library is a little secret smack in the city center. Nothing in the concrete courtyard of the Palais Mollard in the Herrengasse gives any indication of the treasures concealed on the first floor. This is where the umpteen perfectly polished, incredibly beautiful globes dating back hundreds of years—most of them round and all of them exciting—are displayed in numerous glass cases. For the most part, their surfaces present lithographically printed images of the world and occasionally a daring fantasy or two.

The rich holdings of the museum include terrestrial and celestial globes, armillary spheres, slate surface globes, moon globes, planetary globes, huge and tiny globes, globes in boxes, collapsible, inflatable, and hanging globes. Founded in 1956, the museum contains the most extensive collection of globes and globe-related instruments open to the public worldwide.

All students of the navel of the world have a special aura about them. Several impressive photographs showing women building globes are displayed right next to the entrance to the museum. Images of collectors or old scholars leaning over their globes, ruminating on the nature of the world, can be glimpsed elsewhere in the museum. A special corner accommodates two imposing globes made by the famous globe maker Vincenzo Maria Coronelli. The historical importance of globes in science and education advocated by the International Coronelli Society for the Study of Globes and its co-founder played a vital role in the founding of the museum.

The oldest specimen in the collection is a terrestrial globe from 1536 created by Gemma Frisius. If these globes testify to anything, it is the constant movement of our world. It exists in our imagination as well as in constantly changing maps. However, the eternal quest for precision loses luster when compared to the aesthetic pleasure globe makers found in attention to detail. The latter is ultimately what transforms globes from scientific objects into decorative collector’s items.

Nowadays globe studies are mostly focused on digital products. In this respect, those looking at the Earth aren’t that different from cinemagoers. In Vienna, however, the greatest focus of the collection is on specimens created before 1950. This fits the city but also Ted Fendt, whose encounter with cinema is closely intertwined with its analog beginnings.

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