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This late 17th Century engraving is a celestial and terrestrial composite illustration of Jupiter (Iupiter), combining early astronomical observation with classical landscape aesthetics. The upper portion of the image features a detailed depiction of the planet Jupiter and its four largest moons, the Galilean satellites, set against a dense field of stars. The planet is inscribed with faint horizontal bands, likely representing its observed atmospheric stripes, a detail made increasingly visible through telescopic observation by the late 17th century.
At the center top, the word Iupiter identifies the subject. The planet is shown as a sphere marked with banded lines—an abstraction of Jupiter’s characteristic zonal appearance. Surrounding it are four stars or small planetary figures—symbolic representations of Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, the Jovian moons first recorded by Galileo in 1610.
Below, the engraving transitions to an idyllic mountainous landscape in the baroque pastoral style.
Alain Mannesson Mallet (1630-1706) was a French mapmaker and engineer who served in the armies of Louis XIV. After rising through the ranks, Mallet was appointed as Inspector of Fortifications, a job which also required mathematical skills and which made him a competent military engineer. Eventually, he joined the court of Louis XIV at Versailles, where he taught math and focused on writing.
Mallet is best known for his Description de L’Univers, first published in 1683, in five volumes. A wide-ranging geographical work, the Description included textual descriptions of the countries of the world, as well as maps of the celestial sky and the ancient and modern worlds. The Description continued to be published until the early eighteenth century. He also published a work in three volumes on warfare (1684) and a primer on geometry (1702).
