Celestial chart of the Northern Celestial Sphere

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. This chart was published in the 'Atlas Coelestis; seu Harmonia Macrocosmica', the only celestial atlas to be produced in the Netherlands before the nineteenth century. It was a compilation of maps of the Ptolemaic universe and the more modern theories of Copernicus and Brahe, and remains the finest and most highly decorative celestial atlas ever produced. It was originally published by Jan Jansson in 1660: this chart comes from Schenk & Valk's reissue.