Map of the Moon by Hevelius and Riccioli

The artwork

On the right disc, to the right of the center, you can read Mare Tranquillitatis: it is the sea where Apollo 11 landed on July 20, 1969. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, with a handmade frame.

That name was chosen in 1651 by two Jesuits, Giovanni Battista Riccioli and Francesco Maria Grimaldi, for the map of the Moon in the Almagestum novum, drawn by Grimaldi. They gave the seas names of moods and weather conditions, and the craters names of astronomers and philosophers. Riccioli rejected Copernicus's theory, and yet he dedicated a clearly visible crater to him, and said he had put all the Copernicans in troubled waters: Copernicus and Keplerus are in the Oceanus Procellarum, the Ocean of Storms, with Ricciolus and Grimaldus not far away, on the edge. His naming system is the one that is still used today.

The left disc, on the other hand, follows Johannes Hevelius, who in 1647, in Danzig, had baptized the Moon with the geography of the Earth: there you can find a Sicily with Etna and a Mare Mediterraneum. About a dozen of his names survive, including the Apennines. The "Tabula Selenographica" is by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, plate 11 of his Atlas Coelestis (Nuremberg, 1742). At the top right, Diana, with the crescent moon among her curls and her face full of freckles, has the motto "Sit maculosa licet, tamen est formosa Diana" around her: she may have spots, but she is beautiful. This hand-colored copy is from the David Rumsey Map Collection.

In the room of someone who dreams of space, or in the study of someone who in 1969 was in front of the television, it is a gift that is understood at first glance. And in the Mare Tranquillitatis, on the right, there is still room to land.

Unique quality material

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 40 x 60 cm
With frame: 42 x 62 cm
Material: artwork printed on the finest paper with handmade Amalfi deckle edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass