The southern celestial hemisphere

A superbly-decorated celestial chart of the Southern Hemisphere, showing the classical constellations within a border filled with winged cherubs. Despite the 'Antiquum' of the title the chart contains up-do-date information, including the twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Dutch explorers Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman in the late 16th century. These include the 'Southern Birds', Tucana, Grus, Phoenix and Pavo. It was engraved by Jan van Loon and 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. This example is from the first edition of the atlas; in 1661 a plate number was added bottom right.