VINCENZO MARIA CORONELLI. — Cartographer and geographer, born in Venice on 16 Aug. 1650, died there on 9 Dec. 1718. He entered the Conventual Franciscans at a young age and was elected their superior general in 1701. He also held civil offices: cosmographer to the Venetian Republic in 1685 and reader in geography in 1689.
A maker of terrestrial and celestial globes, author of more than 200 large maps, he published almanacs, guides, atlases, geographical works, travel books, chronologies, encyclopedias, religious pamphlets, etc., among which the following are especially notable:
the *Atlante vento* (1690), the *Corso geografico* (1694), the *Isolario* (1696), *Viaggi da Venezia in Inghilterra* (1697), the *Biblioteca universale* (1701–1709), a vast and original encyclopedia left unfinished (only 7 of the 45 projected volumes appeared), and the *Cronologia universale* (1707). He founded the Accademia degli Argonauti, the oldest geographical society in the world, and designed major public works later carried out, such as two bridges over the Grand Canal, the “murazzi” of the Lido, and a diversion canal for the Adige.