At the Bell

Aquisition and Provenance of the Waldseemüller gores

The 1507 globe gores map at the James Ford Bell Library is one of only four known to exist, and the only one in the Americas. Another copy, also probably published in April 1507, was purchased at a London auction in 2005. Two other copies of unknown date are held in Germany at the Bavarian State Library in Munich and the Museum und Stadtbibliothek in Offenburg. The only know copy of the wall map is held at the Library of Congress, and is believed to be a later edition of ca. 1515.

The Bell Library acquired its copy of the 1507 globe gores in 1954, when Mr. Bell purchased it from Prince Johann II von und zu Liechtenstein and then donated to the Bell collection at the University of Minnesota. The House of Liechtenstein had owned the map since 1883, when it purchased it as part of the estate of Franz Ritter von Hauslab, a former Field-Marshall-Lieutenant in the Austrian army and, later, a member of the household of the Austrian crown. The map's provenance before this point is unknown at this time.