Harmonia Macrocosmica

Andreas Cellarius.  Harmonia Macrocosmica. Amsterdam: P. Schenk & G. Valk, 1708.

Engravings.

First published in 1660 by Dutch-German mathematician and cosmographer Andreas Cellarius (ca. 1625-1665), this lushly illustrated atlas was intended to serve as the historical introduction for a two-part series on cosmography.  The second volume was never realized.  Charting the theories of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe, the first 21 plates present the motions of the Sun and planets.  The last eight plates of celestial hemispheres and planispheres illustrate constellations.  Making use of the popular vivid Baroque style, Cellarius made the revolutionary abstractions of 17th-century astronomy comprehensible.

Link: University of Michigan Divine Sky exhibit.