Andreas Cellarius’ Harmonia macrocosmica is an outstanding example of Dutch cartography that experts class as a creative triumph of the Dutch Golden Age. Only about 20 copies of the atlas, published in 1661, are thought to survive worldwide. After conservation treatment, a copy in the collection of the Blickling Estate (National Trust) is on display in Blickling’s Long Gallery, alongside reproduction pages showing some of the remarkably unfaded illustrations.

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.

It was during this period that Leuven, Antwerp, and Amsterdam became centers for the production of maps that combined lavish illustrations with advances in mapmaking techniques and scientific theories.

Little is known about the German-born author, Andreas Cellarius, 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.

Of the numerous engravers and authors who collaborated on the atlas’s plates, only two signed their work. Frederik Hendrik van den Hove is credited with the creation of the frontispiece, while Johannes van Loon engraved ten plates. Furthermore, all classical constellation designs were derived from the original work of Jan Pieterszoon Saenredam.

The Cellarius atlas is one volume from a lavish set of fourteen atlases by great Dutch Golden Age mapmakers, which have been at Blickling since they were acquired in the seventeenth century. Blickling’s atlases are being studied as part of a National Trust research project into the effect of light on collections items. It is hoped that by understanding how different pigments and materials fade on light exposure, curators will be able to plan the display of items without damaging them. Using exposure to controlled amounts of light, and monitoring the changes to the objects, the conservation charity will learn which materials are most fragile and how to balance access to precious treasures whilst keeping them safe for future generations.