Globe of Gottorf

The construction was supervised by Frederick's court scholar and librarian Adam Olearius and carried out by the gunsmith Andreas Bösch from Limburg an der Lahn.

The official designation was "Lusthaus" (folly or hunting lodge); only toward the latter decades of its existence was it called "Globe house".

Leaks in the flat roofs damaged the building, but the Globe remained a popular exhibition piece and was readily demonstrated to visitors.

The Globe was an invention of the Duke; the scientific lead lay with his court scholar and librarian Adam Olearius.

Early in 1713 Tsar Peter held conference with his ally, king Frederick IV of Denmark in Holstein, possibly Gottorf.

[2] In 1828 the Globe was transferred to the eastern rotunda of the Zoological Museum, and in 1901 to the Admiralty at Tsarskoje Selo, just south of Saint Petersburg.

The Globe itself stood in a wide, twelve-sided, wooden, horizontal ring, which was supported by an alternation of herm pillars and Corinthian columns.

Painted on the exterior of the Globe was the then known world – Europe, Africa, America and Asia – with coloured country borders and with depictions of animals, ships and sea creatures.

The stars were represented by more than 1000 gilded brass nail heads, while the constellations were painted as coloured figures on the blue background of the heavens.

The Globe included mechanisms to show the annual movement of the Sun and to drive a "world clock" that indicated where on Earth it was midday or midnight.

The doors of the Globe hall featured portraits of Nicolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, in reverence to the foremost authorities of astronomy at the time.

[5] While the main floor with the Globe provided space for learned discussions among a larger audience, the upper level was more private with its sleeping quarters and a festive hall.

The backrest was a broad horizon ring made of brass, which displayed details of the Gregorian and Julian calendars, as well as astronomical data regarding the daily altitude of the Sun.

Due to the inclination of the globe axis, Gottorf lay at the top of the copper hemisphere and as such formed the centre of this artificial world.

This exhibited both the daily motion of sunrise and sunset and the annual movement, the seasonal change of rise and set points and of the Sun's maximum altitude.

Thus the Globe of Gottorf was the first walk-in planetarium in history, which gave the visitor a "live" demonstration of the phenomena of the heavens.

[6] An alternative drive was a wooden watermill in the lower basement, which could turn the Globe in real time, at one revolution per day.

[6] When the construction of the Globe reached its final stages, Andreas Bösch began a new project, the Sphaera Copernicana.

This was to extend the concept of the Globe and its representation of Ptolemy's geocentric model, which was already recognised as antiquated by the Gottorf court.

The Globe impressed with its size and original design, the Sphaera with a complex clockwork mechanism that controlled 24 different functions and displays simultaneously.

Surrounding it were brass rings supported on rollers, which represented the orbits of the then known planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

The position of the Sun relative to each curtain cylinder showed the time of day according to civil, Roman-Babylonian and Jewish convention, resp.

[4] Finally, the Ptolemaic armillary sphere on top of the time of day display, in assembly and movement, is a miniature version of the Globe.

[7] The exception was an inventory of the Duke's residence drawn up in 1708 for general taxation purposes, which contained details about the value and condition of the buildings and gardens at Gottorf Castle.

[7] Starting in 1991 with the text of the inventory, Felix Lühning prepared a reliable, drawing-based reconstruction of the Globe house.

It was then possible to undertake a reliable reconstruction of the Globe with regard to its construction, technological and astronomical content, and overall design.

[7] The result was, in 1997, a reconstruction by Felix Lühning of the Globe house in the Neuwerk garden in drawings and models, which were mainly based on the intense study of written sources.

More recent excavations by the State of Schleswig-Holstein, with more advanced means than available to Lühning, may necessitate a revision of the reconstruction of the basements, essentially by filling in previous gaps in knowledge.

[7] During the first decade of the 21st century, great efforts were undertaken to uncover the terrain of the Neuwerk garden, in order that the layout once again be visible.

A virtual reality movie, featuring Adam Olearius and Duke Frederick III recounts the creation of the globe, placing it in the context of the Thirty Years' War.