Description
Jacob de Gheyn's Arataea, sive Signa Coelestia
Title with woodcut device, 43 celestial maps (?of 44), each 160 x 140mm., contemporary vellum, with additional vellum-backed strip along spine, [cf Ter Meulen & Diermanse 413; Brunet II, 1766], 4to, J. Jansson, 1621.
This fine celestial atlas is a second edition of Arataea, sive Signa Coelestia by Jacob de Gheyn, published in Amsterdam in 1621.
This second edition is a re-issue of the plates which first appeared in Grotius’ Syntagma Arateorum in 1600. The work called for 42 plates plus one of the zodiac and one of the four seasons. This copy is lacking the general plate of the zodiac. Bayer's well-known Uranometria , which came out in 1603, was influenced by this earlier work.
The first 39 plates each depict a constellation in the form laid out by Caius Julius Hyginus in the first century BC. The remaining 4 plates show the faces of the gods representing each of the five known planets, the order of the zodiac, “Lacteus” or the Milky Way, and the faces of the four seasons. Each plate is inscribed with the initials “IDG”.
De Gheyn is best known for his portrait of Tycho Brahe, an early and ground-breaking astronomer, as well as his Maniement d’Armes, an illustrated guide to the handling of pikes, muskets, etc. ref: Warner, The Sky Explored, p. 93 (the plates are incorrectly described here as woodcuts).