Magnificent 17th Century Maps To The Stars' Homes

by Stephen J. Gertz

 Unidentified Los Angeles rare book dealer offering celestial maps.

Here in Los Angeles you can't throw a rock without hitting a star. They're all over the place, a galaxy of celestial bodies drawn into the black hole that is The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where red giants, white dwarfs, red dwarfs, neutrons, and super giants orbit around lox and bagels, alfalfa spouts, and baby carrots. Some have exhausted their hydrogen core and their careers slowly extinguish; others remain Main Sequence and still pack a punch, astrofusion-wise.

Withal, there are so many stars that you need maps to know just where they rest in the firmament and what region of the universe they call home.

CELLARIUS, Andreas. [The sizes of the celestial bodies]
Corporum coelestum magnitudines.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
'The sizes of the celestial bodies, with borders filled with putti.

Fortunately, a collection of star maps from Andreas Cellarius' Atlas Coelestis; seu Harmonia Macrocosmica, the only celestial atlas to be produced in the Netherlands before the nineteenth century, has just come into the marketplace.

CELLARIUS, Andreas. Scenographia Systematis Copernicani.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
'The Scenography of the Copernican world system', showing a human-faced
Sun at the centre of the Solar System, lighting the sides of 'Earths', positioned
at each equinox, three of which show California as an island. The four corners
are filled with angels, putti and allegorical figures.

A compilation of maps of the Ptolemaic universe and the more modern theories of Copernicus and Brahe, the Atlas Coelestis remains the finest and most highly decorative celestial atlas ever produced. Engraved by Jan van Loon, a mathematician and engraver who contributed charts and maps to various pilot books and sea atlases by Jacobsz, and Robijn, and originally published by Jan Jansson in 1660, these plates come from Schenk & Valk's reissue of 1708.

CELLARIUS, Andreas. [Southern Celestial Sphere]
Haemisphaerium Stellatum Australe aequali spahaerum propotrione.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
A celestial chart showing 'The southern stellar hemisphere with equally
 proportioned spheres'. It shows the classical constellations superimposed
over a globe on which can be seen the Americas.

"The highpoint of celestial atlas production…and the volume that ranks with Blaeu's Atlas Maior and Goo's Ze Atlas is Harmonica Macrocosmica…by Andreas Cellarius.

CELLARIUS, Andreas.
Haemisphaerium scenographicum australe coeli stellati et terrae.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
A beautiful chart of the southern skies with the classical constellations
superimposed over a globe showing South America, southern Africa
and 'Terra Australis Incognita'. The title banners are held aloft by grotesques
and in the bottom corners are astronomers surrounded by instruments
including an astronomical telescope.

"Published by Jan Janson in Amsterdam in 1660, the atlas comprises some 29 star charts and diagrams which portray varying celestial and planetary systems, orbits, and theories.

CELLARIUS, Andreas.
Haemisphaerium Stellatum Borealecum Subiecto Haemisphaeio Terrestri.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original colour with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
A beautiful chart of the Northern skies, depicted on a globe held up by
Atlas and Hercules. The constellations are superimposed over a globe
on which much of the Northern Hemisphere can be seen, including
the British Isles, Arabia, Borneo, Japan and parts of Canada.
In the top corners the title is on banners under trumpets blown by angels.
In the background are figures representing classical astronomers.

"Little is known of Cellarius besides the information provided within the atlas, that he was a Rector of the Latin School at Hoorn, 20 miles north of Amsterdam..

CELLARIUS, Andreas. [Celestial chart of Tycho Brahe's theories of the Universe]
Planisphaerium Braheum, sive structura Mundi Totius, ex hpyothesi
Tychonis Brahei in plano delinieata.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
A beautiful celestial chart depicting the planisphere of Brahe, or the structure
of the universe following the hypothesis of Tycho Brahe drawn in a planar view.

"The format of most engravings is similar - a sphere occupying the sheet top to bottom within which the diagram or chart is positioned, allowing up and down each side, decoration of an instructional, symbolic or purely aesthetic nature.

CELLARIUS, Andreas. [Celestial chart showing the Phases of the Moon]
Typus selenographicus lunae phases et aspectus varios adumbrans.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original colour with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
A celestial chart showing a 'Selenographic diagram depicting the varying
phases and appearances of the Moon by shading.' At the centre is the earth,
surrounded by the different phases of the Moon.

"The Cellarius charts, issued in 1660, 1661, 1666, and 1708 (as here), occasionally appear on the market and can be found in superb, bright, original colour, highlighted with gold, making them highly decorative items.

CELLARIUS, Andreas.
Haemisphaerium Stellatum Australe antiquum.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
A beautiful celestial chart of the stars as known to the Ancients,
with the classical constellations.
The borders contain the titles on banners and several putti.

"The later edition of 1708 has the imprint of of the publishers Valk and Schenk on each engraving..

CELLARIUS, Andreas.
Coeli Stellati Christiani Haemisphaerium Prius.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights.  440 x 515mm.
A beautiful celestial chart of the constellations, depicting them not in the
traditional Greco-Roman figures but in Christian imagery as envisaged
by Julius Schiller in 1627 in an attempt to make the iconography of the
stars more relevant to his day. Thus the Zodiac is represented by the
Twelve Apostles and Pegasus has become Gabriel. All the figures are
shown face on, because Schiller thought it would be an indignity to have
them show their backsides. His changes did not catch on, causing him
often to be ridiculed, but when they were published his charts were the
most accurate available.

"...The elegant title page represents fully the contents of the book. each of the charts is well-designed, well-engraved, and often…is in fine original colour heightened  in  gold" (Potter, Collecting Antique Maps, pp. 173-74).

CELLARIUS, Andreas. [The Universe according to Ptolemy]
Situs Terrae Circulis Coelestibus Circundatae.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
A beautiful chart representing the Ptolemaic notion of the static Earth
at the center of the rotating universe.

On the title page, "The Muse of Astronomy, Urania, is surrounded by scientists, mathematicians and astronomers and celestial globes and observation equipment. At lower right a bound volume is typical of the fine red morocco binding with gold embossing, used in Amsterdam at the time.

CELLARIUS, Andreas. [Scenography of the Ptolemaic cosmography]
Scenographia systematis mundani Ptolemaici
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708.
Original color with additions, including gold highlights. 440 x 515mm.
A beautiful celestial chart showing Ptolemy's theory of the Universe.
At the centre is the Earth, showing its eastern hemisphere, being circles
by the sun and planets, with the Zodiac.

"Two cherbus hold aloft the book's title on a banner whilst another couple, using cross-staffs, study the zodiacal signs of Libra and Virgo" (ibid).

It's highly unlikely that, while driving on Sunset Blvd. in Beverly Hills or Bel Air, you will encounter a rare bookseller hawking Andreas Cellarius's magnificent star maps from the curb. But if falling star Sylvester Stallone's career finally lands with a thud, you may see him on the corner of Sunset and Beverly Drive spinning a sign offering these star maps as if hustling apartment rentals or discount income tax preparation.

Twinkle, twinkle.

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Title-page to 1660 first edition.

CELLARIUS, Andreas. Harmonia macrocosmica: seu, Atlas universalis et novus : totius universi creati cosmographiam generalem et novam exhibens : in quâ omnium totius mundi orbium harmonica constructio, secundum diversas diversorum authorum opiniones, ut & Vranometria, seu totus orbis coelestis, ac planetarum theoriæ, & terrestris globus, tam planis & scenographicis iconibus, quam descriptionibus novis ab oculos ponuntur : opus novum, antehac nunquam visum, cujuscunque conditionis hominibus utilissimum, jucundissimum, maxime necessarium, & adornatum. Amstelodami: Apud Gerardum Valk & Petrum Schenk, 1708.

Fourth edition. Folio. 29 double hand-colored engraved plates.

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Chart images courtesy of Altea Gallery Antique Maps of London, currently offering these splendid charts, with our thanks. Today's header image is most certainly not of its proprietor, Massimo De Martini.

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