Celestial planisphere with signs of the Zodiac
from Andreas Cellarius’ Atlas coelestis seu harmonia macrocosmica
published by Johannes Janssonius (Amsterdam 1660 – 1661).
Stapleton Historical Collection. London
©2021. Photo Scala, Florence/Heritage Images.

Almost nothing is known about the life of Andreas Cellarius. Born around 1596 in Neuhausen, near Worms, in 1613 he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg and spent his life as a schoolmaster in Amsterdam, The Hague and finally in Hoorn. Around 1637 he was appointed rector of a Latin school in Hoorn, period in which he wrote the Atlas coelestis seu Harmonia macroscopica, depicting in twenty-nine splendid tables the movements of the celestial bodies, the star constellations of the northern hemisphere, Ptolemy’s geocentric universe, Copernicus’ heliocentric one and Tycho Brahe’s combination of the two.