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Description

Exceptional Original Color

A fine old color example of this striking map of the Southern Sky, illustrating the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere superimposed over the earth's Southern Hemisphere, first published by Andreas Cellarius in 1660.

The map provides a fantastic image of the stars, as if seen from deeper in space, so that each of the constellations is facing in the opposite direction from the way that the same constellations would be seen from earth. This projection reflects a theory that originated with Petrus Plancius, that the stars remained in a sphere-like configuration above the earth, which moved in coordination with the earth. This theory is found in the title of his atlas, Harmonia Macrocosmica.

This chart gives an up-to-date mapping of the constellations of the southern hemisphere, most notable for its inclusion of the most recently observed constellations, i.e. those that could only have been seen on voyages to the deep southern latitudes. 

Condition Description
Original hand-color. Engraving on 17th-century laid paper.
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.