 employed various engravers to work on the plates of the atlas, but only two have signed their work: Frederik Hendrik van den Hove is author of the frontispiece, and Johannes van Loon, who engraved ten charts. All of the designs of the classical constellations were taken from the ones created by Dutch Mannerist artist and engraver Jan Pieterszoon Saenredam (1565-1607). The current chart, which appears as Plate Eleven in the atlas, is signed by van Loon.

This engraving by Johannes van Loon, who also authored Cellarius’s map of the Ptolemaic Planetary Spheres, represents a Ptolemaic armillary sphere, a scientific instrument designed to show the movement of the celestial spheres around the Earth. The Earth, centred on the East Indies and showing a rudimentary outline of the coast of Western Australia, is mounted on its axis (‘Axis Globi Terrestris’), surrounded by three thinner rings representing the equatorial ring and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The Polar Circles are also indicated on the sphere. A pair of rings encompass the entirety, representing the celestial equator (the large blue band, labelled ‘Horizon’), and the ecliptic circle or Zodiac ring, depicted with animals representing each constellation such as Leo and Virgo.

The Sunderland Collection

Andreas Cellarius’s stunning ‘Harmonia Macrocosmica’ was the only celestial atlas produced during a celebrated era of Dutch publishing between 1570 and 1670. It is quite possibly the finest celestial atlas ever realised. This is one of twenty-one sumptuous Baroque-style charts that majestically represent the three competing astronomical models of the day: the Ptolemaic, Tychonic, and the Copernican.

This image shows us a Ptolemaic armillary sphere, a scientific instrument designed to show the movement of the celestial spheres around the Earth. The Earth itself is centred on the East Indies, mounted on its axis (‘Axis Globi Terrestris’). It is surrounded three small red rings representing the equatorial ring in the centre, flanked by the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. The two larger bands represent the celestial equator (labelled ‘Horizon’), and the ecliptic circle or Zodiac ring. Where the celestial equator touches the Zodiac are the two points representing the two Equinoxes, where night and day are the same length.

This map was included in Cellarius’s magnum opus, the ‘Harmonia Macrocosmica’ (1660), which was published by Johannes Janssonius, who in the same year also included the work as the last volume in his own ‘Atlas Maior’.

Andreas Cellarius’s representation of the Ptolemaic geocentric theory of the Cosmos, with the Earth at the centre surrounded by 'celestial circles', as if in a three-dimensional armillary sphere.

Cellarius's Map of a Ptolemaic Armillary Sphere