Maps of the Heavens 2019 Wall Calendar

During the seventeenth century, a remarkable epoch for mapmaking, cartographers refined their art in step with advances in the sciences. Andreas Cellarius (c. 1596–1665) was perhaps the greatest mapmaker of the time. His magnificent Atlas Coelestis, or Harmonia Macrocosmica, published in Amsterdam in 1660, illustrates various theories of astronomy, including the second-century Ptolemaic model of the cosmos, the contemporary ideas advanced by Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, and the Christianization of the constellations, as put forth by Julius Schiller.
In addition to being an artifact of early science, The Celestial Atlas of Harmony, from which most of this calendar’s images were selected, is a lively and inspiring work of art. In its hand-colored copper engravings, mythical beasts cavort in the heavens, learned astronomers discuss their findings, and exquisitely wrought (if now scientifically implausible) diagrams explain the workings of the solar system.