4 • Renaissance Star Charts Anna Friedman Herlihy Between the early fifteenth and the early seventeenth cen- of their predecessors for both technical data and artistic turies, star charts progressed from imprecise, often deco- style, with certain works reflecting moments of break- rative illustrations based on medieval manuscripts to through and the founding of new traditions. sophisticated map projections with systematized nomen- clature for the stars. The reimportation into Europe of Historiography technical classical texts such as Ptolemy’s Almagest, as well as Islamic works such as Abu¯ al-H. usayn Abd al- Despite the recent publication of a number of lavish illus- 3 Rah.ma¯n ibn Umar al-S.u¯fı¯’s constellation maps, appears trated books intended for a general public audience, the to have played a significant role in this transformation. By study of Renaissance star charts (and indeed star charts the early sixteenth century, with the publication of Al- in general) has been largely neglected by the scholarly brecht Dürer’s pair of maps in 1515, the most popular format for small celestial maps was definitively set: two hemispheres, north and south, on some sort of polar pro- jection. Around the turn of the seventeenth century, when Johannes Bayer published his 1603 Uranometria, the ba- I would like to thank Elly Dekker for her invaluable feedback and comments on the draft of this chapter, especially regarding the Hip- sic star atlas format was solidified, with one page for each parchus rule, and for several additional references of which I was un- constellation and perhaps a few hemispherical charts aware. I would also like to thank the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy covering larger regions of the sky. Museum History of Astronomy Department for providing space, time, The revolutionary star charts of Conrad of Dyffenbach and resources to work on parts of this chapter. and the earliest of Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli’s comet A note on terminology: given the lack of consensus on the proper term for a two-dimensional rendering of the stars (among the options— maps mark the beginning of a new focus on a more pre- star/celestial /astronomical chart and star/celestial /astronomical map), cise representation of the night sky than had previously “star chart” and “star map” are used interchangeably in this chapter; been apparent in medieval manuscripts. Three distinct “celestial and astronomical chart /map” refers, in my opinion, to a much traditions for Renaissance star charts emerged: decora- broader category of maps than those of the stars. tive—in which star positions do not conform to observ- Abbreviations used in this chapter include: Globes at Greenwich for Elly Dekker et al., Globes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Globes and able star patterns; rigorous—where star positions more Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Ox- accurately reflect the star patterns in the night sky and ford: Oxford University Press and the National Maritime Museum, attention to mathematical and scientific precision; and 1999), and Adler for the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, specialized—where star maps help record celestial phe- Webster Institute for the History of Astronomy, Chicago. nomena and/or new discoveries or demonstrate prac- 1. In this chapter I attempt to partially redress the omission of a com- plete discussion of medieval European star charts in volume 1 of The tical uses for the stars. By the end of the sixteenth cen- History of Cartography series. tury, the decorative tradition began to wane, although 2. Although the main focus of this chapter remains star charts, globes the others coexisted throughout the Renaissance and are introduced into the discussion as appropriate due to the overlap- beyond. ping and complementary histories of these two forms of maps of the Many factors came into play in the evolution of Re- stars. 3. For example, see (in chronological order): George Sergeant Snyder, naissance star maps, in addition to classical and Islamic Maps of the Heavens (London: Deutsch, 1984); Giuseppe Maria Sesti, scientific texts. Medieval manuscripts set the stage for The Glorious Constellations: History and Mythology, trans. Karin H. all three traditions.1 Globes influenced star charts, pro- Ford (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991); Carole Stott, Celestial viding new information and artistic styles. Star charts Charts: Antique Maps of the Heavens (London: Studio Editions, 1991); likewise influenced globes.2 Astrolabes also played a role Peter Whitfield, The Mapping of the Heavens (San Francisco: Pome- granate Artbooks in association with the British Library, 1995); and in the evolution of star charts, providing a model of the Marc Lachièze-Rey and Jean-Pierre Luminet, Celestial Treasury: From stereographic projection. As was the case in much of the Music of the Spheres to the Conquest of Space, trans. Joe Loredo cartography in general, makers often drew upon the work (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 99 100 The History of Renaissance Cartography: Interpretive Essays community.4 Celestial globes, on the other hand, have finds that only a handful of articles have been written about any aspect been more extensively researched.5 This is, to a large of celestial cartography, half of which are about celestial globes. In a rel- atively recent guide to map terminology, Wallis and Robinson relegate extent, the result of a historiographical separation of “astronomical maps” to “maps of natural phenomena” rather than cat- two-dimensional and three-dimensional material. The egorizing them as a major “type of map,” as they do celestial globes; history of celestial globes has tended to be subsumed by Helen Wallis and Arthur Howard Robinson, eds., Cartographical In- the study of globes in general, whereas celestial charts novations: An International Handbook of Mapping Terms to 1900 are infrequently discussed in general histories of two- (Tring, Eng.: Map Collector Publications in association with the Inter- national Cartographic Association, 1987), 135–38. dimensional cartography. This division of globes and 5. Much of this work has been done in journals such as Der Globus- charts has carried over into the popular literature as well, freund, with more recent work in catalogs; see, for example, Globes at where the broad term “celestial cartography” has been Greenwich or Peter van der Krogt, Globi Neerlandici: The Production primarily applied to star charts, with a limited inclusion of Globes in the Low Countries (Utrecht: HES, 1993). of globes and other types of celestial charts. Occasionally, 6. For example, see Zofia Ameisenowa, The Globe of Martin Bylica of Olkusz and Celestial Maps in the East and in the West, trans. An- however, scholarly studies of celestial material have drzej Potocki (Wrociaw: Zakiad Narodowy Imienia Ossolin´ skich, 6 bridged this divide. 1959); Deborah Jean Warner, The Sky Explored: Celestial Cartography, Historians of art and astronomy have contributed the 1500 –1800 (New York: Alan R. Liss, 1979); Rochelle S. Rosenfeld, greatest numbers of works about star charts, many, if not “Celestial Maps and Globes and Star Catalogues of the Sixteenth and most, of which are cited in this chapter. Prior to 1979, Early Seventeenth Centuries” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1980); and many of the works of Elly Dekker, in particular “Der Himmels- however, no specialized catalog of celestial cartography globus—Eine Welt für sich,” in Focus Behaim Globus, 2 vols. (Nurem- 7 was published. To be sure, there were some early attempts berg: Germanisches Nationalmuseums, 1992), 1:89–100, and “An- at general histories, but these suffer from inaccuracies and dromède sur les globes célestes des XVI e et XVII e siècles,” trans. Lydie often limited information. For example, in his 1932 work Échasseriaud, in Andromède; ou, Le héros à l’épreuve de la beauté, ed. Astronomical Atlases, Maps and Charts: An Historical Françoise Siguret and Alain Laframboise (Paris: Musée du and General Guide, Louvre / Klincksieck, 1996), 403–23. Brown asserts that “the earliest actual 7. Many of the major Renaissance works are cited in Ernst Zinner, map of the heavens, with figures of constellations shown Geschichte und Bibliographie der astronomischen Literatur in Deutsch- and the stars of each group marked with any precision, land zur Zeit der Renaissance (1941; 2d ed. Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, appears to be that of Peter Apian”— one of many gross 1964); however, this listing is not indexed or arranged by type of work, errors in the volume.8 In addition to star charts, Brown so it is impossible to tell which volumes contain celestial charts except in the occasional instances when Zinner annotates an entry. For me- does, however, include sections on many other types of dieval and early Renaissance manuscript charts and constellation draw- celestial cartography excluded from most later general ings, see the four volumes of Fritz Saxl, Verzeichnis astrologischer und works on “celestial charts” or “celestial cartography.” mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters: In 1979, Warner authored The Sky Explored: Celestial vol. 1, [Die Handschriften] in römischen Bibliotheken (Heidelberg: Carl Cartography 1500 –1800. Although its scope was pri- Winters Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1915); vol. 2, Die Handschriften der National-Bibliothek in Wien (Heidelberg: Carl Winters Univer- marily limited to star charts (including specialized star sitätsbuchhandlung, 1927); vol. 3, in two parts, with Hans Meier, charts such as