Al‘suphi’s Star-Atlases and Middle Europe

Extract

The oldest European mythological figures of the star constellations originate from the Farnesian Globe of the 3rd century B.C. The “Centaurus” with the Therion “Lupus” is the most important constellation from which I derive all the series specified. Centaurus holds the wolf with one hand on the hind leg; in the other hand he holds a lance with which he cuts the wolf’s throat. This constellation is incorrectly drawn in the first publication of the Farnesian Globe by Bianchini. These antique figures were the pattern for Cod. Vind. 5415, probably by John Dorn, a Dominican, who made also the globe of Bylica at the Budinian court of the king Mathias. This globe is at present the property of the University-Museum of Krakau. The antique constellation-forms were the pattern for the celestial maps of Sebastian Sperantius of Nurnberg in 1503. Due to Albrecht Durer these mythological figures of the constellations re-appeared in the renaissance. We can find them by John Honterus, John Middoch, on many globes for example that of Coronelli, or of the manuscript globe of the Bibiliotheca Cassanatense in Rome of Moroncelli from the year 1716. They survived till modern times in the “Uranometria” of John Bayer, in the star-atlases of John Flamsteed, John Erlet Bode as well as in the latest star atlas with allegoric figures of Rudiger-Meisner from the year 1805.