This plate depicts the so-called "Christian constellations", a reinterpretation of the starry sky devised by the Augsburg lawyer Julius Schiller and later taken up in Andreas Cellarius's Atlas coelestis seu Harmonia Macrocosmica, published in Amsterdam by Joannes Janssonius in 1660–1661. Schiller had already presented his Coelum Stellatum Christianum in 1627, replacing the traditional pagan figures with a firmament peopled by apostles, saints and biblical scenes: the twelve signs of the zodiac become the twelve apostles, the constellations of the northern hemisphere are associated with figures from the New Testament and those of the southern with figures from the Old. The map thus expresses the Baroque attempt to Christianise the celestial imagination while retaining the astronomical structure inherited from 17th-century atlases.
Unique quality material
Print on handmade Amalfi paper Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in) With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in) Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges Frame: light brown beech wood and wood pulp, handmade
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