Johann Baptist Homann
The Moon according to Hevelius and Riccioli, 1710 c.
19 ½ x 23 in
50 x 59 cm
50 x 59 cm
CELEST1508
Tabula Selenographica in qua Lunarium Macularum exacta Descriptio secundum Nomenclaturam Praestantissimorum Astronomorum tam Hevelii quam Ricciolo Stunning early 18th Century copper engraving of two comparative views by Johannes Hevelius...
Tabula Selenographica in qua Lunarium Macularum exacta Descriptio secundum Nomenclaturam Praestantissimorum Astronomorum tam Hevelii quam Ricciolo
Stunning early 18th Century copper engraving of two comparative views by Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) and Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671).
Danzig-based astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) was responsible for publishing "Seleographia", the very first atlas dedicated to lunar observation in 1647. He found likeness between the topography of the Earth and that which he observed on the Moon through his telescope and began his own nomenclature system, naming lunar formations after terrestrial ones.
Italian astronomer and Catholic priest Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671) named craters and lunar landscapes after polymaths and astronomers, including Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe and Kepler, and renamed the Mare (the large, dark, basaltic plains likened by Hevelius to seas). The names devised by Riccioli largely remain in use today with some minor changes and additions.
The map is surrounded by diagrams of moon phases and there is a Latin description along the lower edge of the map. A decorative vignette featuring a group of Putti using an elongated telescope to observe Selene, goddess of the Moon, adorns the upper corners of the map.
The maps of Hevelius and Riccioli were taken and adapted for this work by Homann’s frequent collaborator, Johann Gabriel Dopplemayr, a surveyor, cartographer, astronomer, and professor of mathematics. The astronomical plates present in Homann atlases were usually his work.
This example is a later edition, published after Homann gained his Imperial Privilegio in 1715.
Original colour. [CELEST1508]
Stunning early 18th Century copper engraving of two comparative views by Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) and Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671).
Danzig-based astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) was responsible for publishing "Seleographia", the very first atlas dedicated to lunar observation in 1647. He found likeness between the topography of the Earth and that which he observed on the Moon through his telescope and began his own nomenclature system, naming lunar formations after terrestrial ones.
Italian astronomer and Catholic priest Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671) named craters and lunar landscapes after polymaths and astronomers, including Galileo, Copernicus, Brahe and Kepler, and renamed the Mare (the large, dark, basaltic plains likened by Hevelius to seas). The names devised by Riccioli largely remain in use today with some minor changes and additions.
The map is surrounded by diagrams of moon phases and there is a Latin description along the lower edge of the map. A decorative vignette featuring a group of Putti using an elongated telescope to observe Selene, goddess of the Moon, adorns the upper corners of the map.
The maps of Hevelius and Riccioli were taken and adapted for this work by Homann’s frequent collaborator, Johann Gabriel Dopplemayr, a surveyor, cartographer, astronomer, and professor of mathematics. The astronomical plates present in Homann atlases were usually his work.
This example is a later edition, published after Homann gained his Imperial Privilegio in 1715.
Original colour. [CELEST1508]
