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CELLARIUS, Andreas (c.1596-1665)
[The Northern Hemisphere viewed through the Classical Celestial Sphere] Hemisphærii Borealis Coeli et Terræ Sphærica Scenographia
Amsterdam: G. Valk & P. Schenk, 1708. Copper-engraved celestial map, with full original colour. Sheet size: 19 3/4 x 22 3/4 inches.
One of the finest and most highly decorative celestial charts ever produced, from the Valk & Schenk edition of Cellarius
This chart is from the Harmonia Macrocosmica seu Atlas Universalis et Novus (Harmonious Universe or New and Universal Atlas) by Andreas Cellarius, the finest celestial atlas ever produced. According to the classical view, championed by Aristotle and Ptolemy, the stars were mounted on a huge transparent sphere made of crystal, which rotated around the planets and the Sun,which in turn revolved around the Earth. In this chart we look through this crytalline sphere, richly decorated with the constellations towards Earth's northern hemisphere.
Cellarius's celestial chart demonstrates three separate ideas about the motions of the spheres, longitude and the influence of the stars. It is a beautiful image, timeless in the abstract harmony of colour, shape and composition, and also a record of the restless search for cosmic understanding.
The present image was originally engraved in 1660 by Jan Janssonius, during the greatest era of Dutch map-making, a period that saw the perfection of the art of representing scientific ideas in a graphic form using engravings. It was reprinted by Janssonius in 1661, and again in 1708 by Gerard Valk and Petrus Schenk, who added their names to the plates.
Andreas Cellarius was born in about 1596 in Neuhausen, a small town near Worms in the Rhine-Hesse region of Germany. From 1625 to 1637 Cellarius worked as a schoolmaster in Amsterdam and The Hague, and in 1637 moved to Hoorn, where he was appointed as headmaster or rector of the Latin School. He published a number of works during his lifetime, but the last and greatest was the Harmonia Macrocosmica. Cellarius resigned from his post as headmaster in early 1665 and died in Hoorn in November of the same year.
Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, Cel. 3
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#11060 $7,500.00 
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© 2002-2005 Donald A. Heald
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