Description

copper engraving, hand-coloured in gouache for the sky, grid lines, and gold image border; and in water-colour for the pictorial constellations, allowing the paper and star symbols to show.

EXTREMELY RARE celestial map from Johann Bayer’s ‘Uranometria’, published by Christoph Mang, Augsburg under the full title Uranometria: omnium asterismorum continens schemata, nova methodo delineata, aereis laminis expressa (from Latin: Uranometria, containing charts of all the constellations, drawn by a new method and engraved on copper plates). The word “uranometria”, from Ancient Greek οὐρανός (ouranós) ‘sky, heavens’ and μέτρον (metron) ‘measure’, literally translates to “measuring the heavens”. It was the first atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere. The first edition of this work was the only one with a dated title page and printed on vellum. This engraving is on chain-linked paper without the text to verso indicating it was a 17th century publication of the atlas.

Bayer included a carefully engraved grid so that the maps could be read and followed to a fraction of a degree. Also, Bayer was the first to use Greek letters to designate stars, commonly in order of magnitude. From that, he named the stars using the Greek letter he had given it, coupled with the constellation name, i.e. alpha Tauri.

Bayer’s work opened a new age in the history of celestial cartography. It was also the first work to represent the stars around the South Pole. The work represented the stars and their positions as presented in Tycho Brahe’s catalogue. Bayer also included a plate depicting 12 new southern constellations discovered by Dutch navigators, Peter Dirckszoon de Keyser and Frederick De Houtmann.