Giovan Battista Nicolosi

[1] In 1642, he published his Teorica del Globo Terrestre ("Theory of the Terrestrial Globe"), a small geographical treatise in which he adopts the tripartite division of the subject into mathematical, physical, and political geography, usually credited to Varenius.

Although in his unpublished works he showed leanings towards the new views of Copernicus, he does not here venture to break away from the Ptolemaic system, no doubt owing to his character as a devout son of the Church.

[1] In 1652, possibly motivated by Nicolas Sanson's new collection of maps, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) hired Nicolosi to compose a new atlas.

[5] The first volume was principally occupied with a detailed description of the countries of the world, while the second formed an atlas of twenty-two newly devised maps — two of the hemispheres, and four devoted to each of the five continents.

[10] This became a standard method of showing the two hemispheres of Earth during the nineteenth century after the equatorial stereographic projection popularized by Gerardus Mercator finally fell into disuse.

Nicolosi globular projection
Rare first state of Nicolosi's four sheet map of North America , the first printed map to accurately depict the course of the Rio Grande (named Rio Escondido ) flowing into the Gulf of Mexico (named “Golfo di Nuova Spagna”). [ 11 ]