Seven orbs of the planets turn about the four elements

Plate 1 opens the atlas with the Ptolemaic universe drawn flat: the four elements at the centre in a ring of cloud, then the seven planetary orbs spreading outward in bands of gold, rose and blue, lettered SEPTEM PLANETARUM ORBES in large red capitals across the sheet. The sun rides in a chariot drawn by white horses at the top; Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury appear in small cloud-borne vignettes around the ring. Two winged sphinx-like figures with acanthus scrollwork fill the upper corners, and at the foot two seated astronomers work with globes, a book and a chart. The Amsterdam imprint of Gerard Valk and Pieter Schenk is engraved along the lower edge.

Andreas Cellarius (c. 1596–1665) was a German-born Dutch cartographer and schoolmaster who spent most of his working life as rector of the Latin school in Hoorn. In 1660 the Amsterdam publisher Johannes Janssonius issued his Harmonia Macrocosmica, a folio atlas of twenty-nine engraved plates that set the competing world systems of Ptolemy, Copernicus and Tycho Brahe beside charts of the constellations and the motions of the planets. It was the last great decorative celestial atlas of the Dutch golden age, and its hand-coloured plates — dense with putti, banners and allegorical figures — were reissued by Gerard Valk and Pieter Schenk in 1708. Copies are held by the Library of Congress, the Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam and the Royal Astronomical Society.

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