The earth clothed and stripped of its provinces
World-globe studies, map-gores, the pole's six-month day, and accounts in ducats
The sheet is dominated by studies of the terrestrial globe: a sphere lit by the sun and 'clothed' with its provinces, a peeled and opened ball showing the lands' shapes and boundaries, and segmented gores for laying the parallels out flat with a compass. A note marks the point A at the pole, where the longest day and the longest night each last six months. Around and beneath the globes run columns of figures and a reckoning in ducats and scudi, together with the terse challenge 'Tell me whether it was ever done.' Further faint sketches, including a small profile head, and additional untranscribed jottings are present.
On this page
The earth 'clothed' with its provinces
Above a globe lit by the sun, marked A, a note explains that the figure shows how the earth is surrounded and clothed by its provinces. It presents the inhabited lands as a covering over the terrestrial sphere.
The earth stripped bare, showing its lands' outlines
Beneath the first globe, a ball cut and opened (also marked A) is said to show what the provinces' quantity, shape and boundaries would be if the earth were stripped of them. It isolates the outline of the landmasses from the sphere.
The pole with a six-month day and night
A closing remark on the opened globe notes that the point A has the longest day, of six months, and likewise the longest night. It marks the polar extreme where sunlight persists for half the year.
Measuring the parallels on the cut sphere
Beside another cut ball, an instruction directs: measure on the cut ball all the parallels where they are in their true form, that is at the middle, and with the compass set them out in each parallel, each equal to itself. It is a method for laying a globe's parallels out flat.
A reckoning in ducats and scudi
At the foot of the sheet runs an accounting jumble headed with the currencies ducats and scudi, with sums such as 158, 474, 47, 97 and 521 set out in columns. It reads as a working reckoning rather than a finished statement.
Columns of calculation
A column of figures runs down the left of the sheet — 388, 94, 90, 474, 776, 948 and others — chains of additions and doublings worked without accompanying words.