Mar 14, 2016 Book of the Week — Theatro del mundo y de el tiempo…

THEATRO DEL MUNDO Y DE EL TIEMP…
Giovanni Paolo Gallucci
Impresso en Granada en las casas de autor, por su industria, y a su costa por Sebastian Munoz, impressor de libros ano 1607

First published in Venice in 1588 as Theatrum mundi, et temporis, this book presents the forty-eight maps of the Ptolemaic constellations and depicts them as mythologic figures. The star positions are taken from Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbum coelestium. Giovanni Paolo Gallucci’s Theatrum is considered the first modern celestial atlas because in its maps he used a coordinate system and a trapezoidal system of projection common among geographic cartographers of the time, allowing an exact determination of the star positions. The lively constellation figures overlay very accurate maps of the stars. Gallucci’s text is an encyclopedia of astronomical knowledge. He describes the Ptolemaic theories of the movement of the planets, the sun, the moon, and eclipses. Tables illustrate the earth, a Dantesque hell, and a forecast of the equinoxes from 1588 to 1800. This edition contains several complex vovelles to aid in calculations.

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