Vincenzo Miot, a little-known Italian globe maker of the early eighteenth century, holds a place among the men who were interested in this field, through one extant example of his work, this being a small celestial, having a diameter of about 17 cm.[131] Its author and date legend reads, “Sphaera Mundi majoribus et minoribus circulis distincta praecipuisque stellis in nostro Horizonte conspicuis ornata ad annum 1710. Studio et opera D. Vincentio Miot.” “World globe marked by large and small circles, and adorned with the principal stars visible in our horizon calculated for the year 1710. By the learning and labor of D. Vincentio Miot.” The sphere is covered with an engraved map showing the several constellations and the principal celestial circles. Its twelve segments are fashioned to terminate at the poles of the ecliptic, instead of at the poles of the equator, a practice not uncommon. The globe has a simple mounting of wood, is reported to be in good condition, and may be found in the Liceo Marco Foscarini of Venice, to which library it came, in the year 1807, from the Convent of S. Georgio Maggiore. It is not a little surprising that our information is so meager concerning men as active in the field of map and globe making as were Gerhard and Leonhard Valk in the latter part of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. We cannot be certain of their relationship; apparently they were not brothers, as has been sometimes stated. If there is not left to us a biographical word by any admiring or appreciative contemporary of these praiseworthy Netherlanders, there is extant a very considerable amount of their work which warrants our giving them rank well toward the van of those interested in their particular field. Of the two, Gerhard seems to have been the more prominent, his name very frequently appearing as the engraver or maker of many of the maps one finds in the collective atlases of the early eighteenth century.[132] With Leonhard he was the maker of globes, large and small, ranging from about 7 cm. to 46 cm. in diameter, of which a very considerable number may still be found in our libraries and museums. In an undated work published by Gerhard on the uses of celestial and terrestrial globes,[133] he tells us of the improvements he introduced, noting that he had attempted to give the location of the stars on his celestial globe as late as 1700, while on those issued prior to his own, the dates selected were in general 1640 or 1660. The suggestion contained herein is that he at least began the construction of his globes as early as 1700, although none are now known bearing date so early.[134] There appears to be an example of his work in the University Library of Ghent, dated 1707, but a description of this it has not been possible to obtain. The date most commonly found on the Valk globes is 1750, all of which, if correctly dated, were issued long after their death.