In the Biblioteca Estense of Modena there may be found three armillary spheres apparently of about the same date as the two just described.[87] One of the three bears the inscription “Jos Antᵘˢ Vulpes Mirandula Domin. anno Domini 1689.” The other two, somewhat larger in size than the preceding, give us no particular indication of the maker, and no exact date of construction. They may be the work of Alberti or of Maccari. In Italy’s long line of illustrious geographers, cartographers, and globe makers none has rank in advance of P. Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718).[88] His achievements within his field were prodigious.[89] While, as noted above, there is wanting the evidence that his influence was extended in striking manner into transalpine countries, he seems at least to have won the enthusiastic recognition of contemporary men of science, as one worthy of honor for his great achievements. He was a native of Ravenna (Fig. 110), a member of the Franciscan Order of monks, serving in the last years of his life as its general. It was in his young manhood that he went to Venice, which city became the scene of the greater part of his literary and scientific activities. [Illustration: Fig. 110. Portrait of P. Vincenzo Coronelli.] More than four hundred maps were drawn, engraved, and printed by him in the Franciscan Convent located on one of the Venetian islands, and known as the Gran Casa del Frari, where he lived with other brothers of the Order. It was in this convent that Coronelli founded, in the year 1680, the first geographical society, to which he gave the name Accademia Cosmografo degli Argonauti,[90] which in its organization followed somewhat that of certain other learned societies owing their origin to the literary and scientific activities of the renaissance period. Its membership, in the course of years, included men of distinction in other cities of Italy and in the North; men famous for their achievements and for their interest in geographical science, literary men, men who held high rank in Europe’s aristocracy, cardinals, prelates, princes, and monarchs.[91] The society became one of the most active of the period, and the list of publications which issued from its press, each bearing the argonautic emblem or device--a ship on a terrestrial globe with the motto “Plus Ultra” (Fig. 111)--is a long one.[92] [Illustration: Fig. 111. Emblem of the Venetian Accademia Cosmografica degli Argonauti.] So great had become the fame of Coronelli as early as the year 1685, that he was honored with the title Cosmografo della Serenissima Republica, and was granted an annual allowance of four hundred florins, and a copyright privilege protecting him in his right to print and publish any of his works for a period of twenty-five years.[93]