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Rare celestial map, used as a teaching tool by Jozef Leski during his final years as an instructor of astronomy in Poland.
Focused on the Polaris, the north star (Polarna Gwiazda), the map lays out the northern celestial hemisphere, with the names of the constellations in Polish.
Józef Franciszek Stanisław Łęski was a Polish astronomer and mathematician, painter and engraver.
Leski's father was a colonel in the Royal Army. At the age of twelve, he becomes a student at the Knights' School in Warsaw. He studied together with Jasiński, Sokolnicki and Kościuszko. He finishes school as a graduate and starts working there as a lecturer, teaching elementary mathematics, surveying and map drawing.
Leski too part in the Kościuszko Uprising as a major, surving as T. Kościuszko's adjutant. He is taken prisoner by Prussia and was imprisoned in Nissa for a year. After being released, he returned to Poland on foot, visiting galleries in Dresden and Berlin on the way.
Upon arriving in Kraków, he obtained work as a professor of mathematics at the Kraków Main School. In 1803, after Jan Śniadecki left for Vilnius, he became the director of the astronomical observatory and professor of astronomy and higher mathematics in Kraków. In 1804, Leski took a position in Warsa as professor of mathematics and physics at the Warsaw Lyceum.
From 1809 to1811 he lived in Paris and studied at the Collège de France.
He was a member of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Science and the Krakow Scientific Society.
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