1627 Schiller Star Chart of the Volans and Dorado Constellations

A hand-colored 1627 celestial map of the Volans and Dorado constellations as the Biblical figure Abel. It appeared in Julius Schiller's rare 1627 star atlas Coelum stellatum Christianum. Schiller's atlas aimed, but failed, to have fellow astronomers replace the classical zodiac and Greco-Roman figures with Christian ones.

A Closer Look

The figure of Abel (corresponding to the Volans and Dorado constellations) is seated on a cloud with a lamb at center, with coordinate lines drawn and stars labeled with letters and Latin numerals. Portions of neighboring constellations can be seen at left (Argo Navis, reimagined Noah's Ark) and at top-right (Tucana and Hydrus, recast as the Archangel St. Raphael). Volans and Dorado, in the Southern Sky, were among the modern constellations named by Petrus Plancius and his colleagues in the late 16th century, first depicted by Johann Bayer in his 1603 star atlas Uranometria Omnium Asterismorum (discussed below).

The recto includes tables and text explaining Schiller's Christian nomenclature for stars next to their more common classically-derived names. However, due to the design and pagination of Schiller's atlas, most of the constellations are explained on the preceding page, with the verso of each plate providing explanation for the following image. Therefore, the verso here discusses the Tucana and Hydrus constellations (Archangel St. Raphael), while the corresponding text for the recto image of Abel would have appeared on the preceding page.

Schiller's ' Coelum Stellatum Christianum'

The Coelum Stellatum Christianum is a star atlas published in 1627 by Julius Schiller (1580 - 1627), a German lawyer and astronomer, in collaboration with Johann Bayer (1572 - 1625), who had published his own highly influential star atlas in 1603, the Uranometria Omnium Asterismorum. Schiller, however, sought to replace the traditional Greco-Roman constellations with Christian figures. Zodiac signs were replaced by the Twelve Apostles, the Sun was replaced by Jesus Christ, the Moon by Mary, and so on, with a range of figures drawn from the Old and New Testaments. In astronomical terms, Schiller incorporated findings from Johannes Kepler’s 1627 Tabulae Rudolphinae and other recent observations, thus improving upon Bayer's Uranometria. Although Schiller's work did not convince other astronomers to replace the terminology and imagery of the heavens, in retrospect, it constituted the best star atlas until nearly the end of the century (when it was bested by Hevelius' 1690 Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia).

Publication History and Census

This plate was prepared by Julius Schiller for his 1627 work Coelum stellatum Christianum, published in Augsburg by Andreas Aperger. It is worth noting that Schiller simultaneously published a second atlas titled Coelum stellatum Christianum Concavum, consisting of counter-proofs of the plates from the first atlas, including the stars but before the constellation figures had been added. This was done in part because Schiller rather atypically projected the stars and constellations as if on the surface of a globe in the Coelum stellatum Christianum, while the Concavum projected them as seen from the Earth, as Bayer and others had done.

This plate is not independently cataloged in the holdings of any institution and the entire Coelum stellatum Christianum is quite rare. A complete census is difficult to establish given inconsistent cataloging and the complicating factor of the Concavum, but we can confirm that in North America examples of the entire atlas are held by the Library of Congress, Stanford University, and Linda Hall Library.