Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
This item has been sold, but you can enter your email address to be notified if another example becomes available.
Description

A 17th-Century Representation of an Ancient Helio-Geocentric Theory

A fine example of Cellarius's chart illustrating the Greek Astronomer Aratus' model of the universe, from Andreas Cellarius's Harmonia Cosmographica . . . The Harmonia is considered to be the greatest celestial atlas ever published, and one of the great works of the Dutch golden age of cartography.

The presented map of the Solar System shows most of the planets orbiting the Earth, with the exception of Venus and Mercury, which orbit the Sun. This depiction is credited to Aratus, a 3rd century B. C. philosopher, whose Phainomena describes the Solar System. This plate is perhaps the most interesting published by Cellarius, showing a model in Venus and Mercury orbit the sun, but the rest orbit the earth. While Cellarius relies on the works of Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, and Nicholas Copernicus to explain the workings of the Solar System, here Cellarius dives into alternate models. While heliocentric theories are most commonly attributed to Copernicus, Cellarius is blunt in his recognition that the presented non-heliocentric models are not new. He goes so far as to state that:

This type of cosmography sketched in plano, the same that Brahe hypothesizes. . . were not invented by Tycho Brahe, nor worked out by him, but dug out of darkness (?) from ingenious labors . . . from Aratus, that most learned Greek poet. . .

In short, "Hypotheses Brahe & Copernicana non sunt nova" (Brahe's and Copernicus's hypotheses are not new).

However, the attribution of this concept to Aratus's Phainomena is false, as the poem is more of an artistic work discussing the gods, and modern scholarly readings of the text show little connection with heliocentrism. Modern readings of this model suggest it as originating to the fourth-century Roman astronomer Martianus Capella and is one of many classical non-fully geocentric theories. His formulation of the universe was depicted in a ninth-century Carolingian manuscript alongside Aratus's poetry. This work, termed the Leiden Aratea, appears to have convinced Medieval and Renaissance scholars that the model shown in the map is Aratean, a hypothesis Cellarius evidently subscribed to. The depiction in the manuscript linked above is nearly identical to Cellarius's. The first known engraved edition of this depiction is credited to Hugo Grotius, published in 1600 in Leyden, albeit on a much smaller scale.

Cellarius's charts are the most sought after of celestial charts, blending the striking imagery of the golden age of Dutch Cartography with contemporary scientific knowledge.

Cellarius's Harmonia Macrocosmica

The most sought after of all celestial atlases, this is the only one to be produced during the Dutch cartographic golden age. This work, Cellarius's magnum opus, was produced as a means to illustrate competing theories of celestial mechanics, during an era in which these issues were very much still up for debate. With scholarly precision, but in a manner accessible to the contemporary reader, Cellarius describes, contrasts, and analyzes the hypotheses and observations made by the great thinkers of classical antiquity in addition to those made by his contemporaries.

Of particular interest are the volume's finely engraved images designed to illustrate the concepts introduced. Plates in the work depict the Sun, the Earth, and the stars in a way they had not been seen before. These magnificent depictions take all the strengths of Dutch 17th-century engraving and apply it to the sky: information is simply presented and any critical eye will immediately start to understand the points that Cellarius conveys.

The plates themselves would have been engraved by several Dutch master engravers, but only two have signed their names: Frederik van den Hove, who made the frontispiece, and Johannes van Loon, a noted creator of nautical charts. By 1660, the work was complete. 

In the text, Cellarius states his intention to publish a second volume that would adjust for this first volume's overreliance on the Ptolemaic model. This overreliance is present in several ways. In plates that pick a certain model of the Solar System, approximately ten show a pre-Copernican concept of the universe, while only two deal with a Copernican viewpoint and six with a Tychonic system. Further, the plates show little in the way of telescopic discoveries, such as the moons of Saturn. We note but two plates (23 and 28) in which a telescope is in active use among the many representations of astronomical tools in the other plates. It is likely that this intended second volume would have focused more heavily on modern astronomical discoveries.

The plates of the Harmonia can be divided into two sections: the first twenty-one deal with varying hypotheses on how the Solar System functions, citing Claudius Ptolemy, Tycho Brahe, Nicolaus Copernicus, as well as lesser-known figures such as Aratus of Soli and Aristarchus. The plates convey, with two-dimensional in plano and three-dimensional scenographia depictions, how the planetary motions within each model account for contemporary observations. Some plates focus on other themes, these include the influence of the Earth's tilt on climatic effects and how we observe the stars, or the explanation for the phases of the Moon.

The final eight plates look past the Solar System and instead focus on the constellations. While later scientific texts eschew discussions of these human constructions, in Cellarius's time they were still considered of critical scholarly importance. The most important recent innovations, which are displayed in various plates, are the discoveries and naming of Southern Hemisphere stars as well as the attempted renaming of the pagan constellations to fit Christian ideals. Some of these plates show the world as seen from outside the celestial realm, that is, we are looking from beyond the stars into our own existence, and these are truly remarkable in their perspective.

Condition Description
Old Color. Double thick sheet.
Andreas Cellarius Biography

Andreas Cellarius was born in 1596 in Neuhausen and educated in Heidelberg. He emigrated to Holland in the early 17th century, and in 1637 moved to Hoorn, where he became the rector of the Latin School. Cellarius' best-known work is his Harmonia Macrocosmica, first issued in 1660 by Jan Jansson, as a supplement to Jansson's Atlas Novus. The work consists of a series of Celestial Charts begun by Cellarius in 1647 and intended as part of a two-volume treatise on cosmography, which was never issued.