A rare seventeenth-century Dutch atlas is to be displayed for the first time at the National Trust’s Blickling Estate in Norfolk, following extensive conservation work.
Andreas Cellarius’s Harmonia Macrocosmica is generally recognized as a high point of Dutch seventeenth-century cartography. Published in 1661, only about 20 copies of this atlas are believed to survive worldwide. The Cellarius atlas is one volume from a lavish set of fourteen atlases by great Dutch mapmakers, which have been at Blickling since they were acquired in the seventeenth century.
Andreas Cellarius (ca. 1596-1665), Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1660
Blickling Estate, National Trust, Aylsham, Norfolk
The atlas describes theories about the movement of the stars, as they were understood in the 1600s. It was created at a pivotal time when thinking was shifting from the Ptolemaic belief that the Earth is at the center of the universe, to the heliocentric belief that the sun is at the center of our Solar System and the planets, moons, and other celestial bodies move around it.
Little is known about the German-born author, Andreas Cellarius (ca. 1596-1665), who was a schoolteacher and then school rector. He wrote a book on military architecture and later on the history of Poland, and it may have been his Amsterdam-based publisher, Johannes Janssonius, who suggested he turn his attention to the celestial. A minor planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, ‘12618 Cellarius’, was discovered in 1960 and named in his honor.
Andreas Cellarius (ca. 1596-1665), Harmonia Macrocosmica (detail), 1660
Blickling Estate, National Trust, Aylsham, Norfolk
Of the numerous engravers and authors who collaborated on the atlas’s plates, only two signed their work. Frederik Hendrik van den Hove (ca. 1628-1698) is credited with the creation of the frontispiece, while Johannes van Loon (ca. 1611-1686) engraved ten plates. Furthermore, all classical constellation designs were derived from the original work of Jan Pieterszoon Saenredam (ca. 1565-1607).
Over three months, a book conservation specialist stabilized the binding of the atlas, which was dry and brittle, and also the text block and plates, which had suffered from tears and splits. The parchment on the spine of the atlas was extremely dry and fractured, with large areas of loss, leaving it almost impossible to handle. It was not in a state that it could be used or displayed to visitors. Many of the pages within were torn and crumpled and in need of repair. The hand-colored plates had become loose and were at risk of further damage.
The atlas will be on display in Blickling’s Long Gallery until 5 January, alongside reproduction pages showing some of the illustrations.