Map of Christian constellations as depicted by Julius Schiller - Andreas Cellarius

This plate depicts the so-called "Christian constellations," a reinterpretation of the starry sky conceived by the Augsburg jurist Julius Schiller and later adopted 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 populated by apostles, saints, and biblical scenes: the twelve zodiac signs become the twelve apostles, the constellations of the northern hemisphere are associated with New Testament figures, and those of the south with Old Testament figures. The map thus expresses the Baroque attempt to Christianize the celestial imagery, while maintaining the astronomical structure inherited from seventeenth-century atlases.

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