Southern Celestial Sphere

A beautiful chart of the southern skies with the classical constellations superimposed over a globe showing South America, southern Africa and 'Terra Australis Incognita'. The title banners are held aloft by grotesques and in the bottom corners are astronomers surrounded by instruments including an astronomical telescope. 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.