Cellarius, Andreas

Harmonia macrocosmica seu atlas universalis et novus, totius universi creati cosmographiam generalem, et novam exhibens. Amsterdam: Jan Janson, 1661



Folio (19 7/8 x 12 ¾ in.; 550 x 324 mm). Letterpress title-page with historiated woodcut printer's device, additional handcolored engraved title page by F. H. van Hoven, 29 fine double-page engraved cosmological charts handcolored with frames in grisaille and heightened with gold, 4 engraved and 2 woodcut text diagrams, floriated woodcut initials, arabesque woodcut tailpieces; all leaves on new guards, two tiny marginal tears in engraved title repaired with cello tape, fold tear in map 13 repaired on verso with cello tape, some minor marginal soiling. Seventeenth-century Dutch vellum, covers gilt-paneled with gold-stamped arabesque medallion in center and floral tools at the corners, flat spine gilt in 8 compartments, edges gilt; some soiling.

Koeman IV, Cel 2; Brown, Astronomical Atlases 40-41

First edition, second issue, a handsomely colored copy of this celestial atlas.

Cellarius' remarkable Harmonia macrocosmica was the only atlas of the heavens published in the Netherlands during the golden age of Dutch cartography. His maps illustrate the cosmological systems of Ptolemy, Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and others, and magnificently render the constellations in the form of classical and biblical figures, animals, and instruments.