ELLY DEKKER (born 1943, Haarlem, The Netherlands) studied theoretical physics and astronomy at Utrecht University and obtained her PhD in 1975 at Leiden University on a thesis ‘Spiral structure and the dynamics of galaxies’ (Physics Reports, 24C (1976), pp. 315-389). From 1978-88 she was curator at the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden. After 1988 she worked as an independent scholar on the history of astronomical models and instruments, such as astrolabes, quadrants, globes, and planetariums. From 1993-1995 she was Sackler fellow of the Royal Museums Greenwich. She was awarded the Caird Medal for her work on the museum’s globe collection in 1998. More recently, she worked on celestial maps and globes made before 1500.
Summary
At the turn of the fifteenth century the idea of printing segments of paper to be pasted ... more Summary At the turn of the fifteenth century the idea of printing segments of paper to be pasted on a sphere was born, and this as is well known completely changed the production of globes. A number of sixteenth and seventeenth century methods for the construction of globe gores are known, but it is as yet not clear whether these methods were actually used in practice by globe makers. The present paper examines how the known theoretical methods relate to each other, and next, to what extent these designs link to sets of gores constructed by globe makers of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century.
Abstract
The relationship between the terrestrial and celestial spheres as it was seen around 150... more Abstract The relationship between the terrestrial and celestial spheres as it was seen around 1500 can be understood only within the framework of the accepted ideas about the structure of the universe in which "the doctrine of the sphere" was a major influence. As an illustration, this paper discusses the emphasis in the Renaissance on teaching astronomical methods for finding the latitude and longitude of places, and the geographers' motives to relate Heaven and Earth. It is subsequently shown how, as a consequence, "the doctrine of the sphere" found expression in the design of Gemma Frisius’s cosmographic globe, which is best regarded as an amalgamation of a terrestrial sphere, an armillary sphere and a celestial globe. It is this distorted model of the universe which ultimately developed into the matching pair of terrestrial and celestial globes.
Cartes & Géomantique. Globes et Sphères: Deux mille ans d’Histoire 243-244 (2021), pp. 47-74., 2021
This paper examines how the celestial globe designed by Gerbert d’Aurillac at the end of the 10th... more This paper examines how the celestial globe designed by Gerbert d’Aurillac at the end of the 10th century fits into the long history of mapping the stars. The construction of a semi-sphere with sighting tubes, described in a letter of Gerbert to Constantine of Fleury, is first examined. A crucial feature of this grid is the pair of the ‘arctic’ and ‘antarctic’ circles for the Greek latitude of 36°. In the descriptive tradition the grid provides the guide lines on which the constellations are to be placed on the globe. Finally, we reflect on the thesis by Marco Zuccato, who suggested that Gerbert borrowed the design of his celestial globe from a now lost book written by Dunāsh ibn Tamīm al-Qarawī, a philosopher, physician and astronomer. It is shown that the concepts underlying Gerbert’s spheres do not conform to Arabic ideas on globe making, and that therefore this thesis cannot be maintained.
Alfred Hiatt (ed.), Cartography between Europe and the Islamic World, 1100-1500: Shared Knowledge, Divergent Traditions, Brill, pp. 91-112., 2021
The assimilation of astronomical knowledge transmitted from the Islamic world to Europe is manife... more The assimilation of astronomical knowledge transmitted from the Islamic world to Europe is manifest in many works, yet not one medieval celestial map is currently known to have been made in the Muslim world. Against this background, the pair of celestial hemispheres in a compendium of Hebrew astronomical and astrological treatises, dated to ca. 1400 CE and of Spanish provenance, raises a number of questions. The analysis has made it clear that a tenth-century Islamic globe based on al-Ṣūfī’s iconography served as the model for the Hebrew pair of hemispheres, and that the Hebrew celestial maps are not the link that connects map making in the Islamic World to the Latin West.
Beiträge zur Astronomiegeschichte, Band 13, Acta Historica Astronomiae, 2016
The significance of the Nuremberg maps, an extraordinary pair of celestial hemispheres, made in 1... more The significance of the Nuremberg maps, an extraordinary pair of celestial hemispheres, made in 1503, is shown to exceed the usual aim of celestial cartography to map the stars. The makers of the Nuremberg maps aspired to present the whole universe and expressed this through the decorations surrounding the northern and southern hemispheres. The meaning of the decorations becomes transparent when they are considered in terms of the macrocosm and microcosm.
Elly Dekker, ‘Precession globes’, in Musa Musaei. Studies on Scientific Instruments and Collections in Honour of Mara Miniati, edited by Marco Beretta, Paolo Galluzzi and Carlo Triarico, Florence 2003, 219- 235., 2003
In antiquity, precession was a very novel feature. It is for this reason that the Alexandrine ast... more In antiquity, precession was a very novel feature. It is for this reason that the Alexandrine astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (second century AD) presented a description of a relevant demonstration model, the so-called precession globe, in his Almagest. Before 1500 only one precession globe is extant. However, the interest in precession globes increased in modern times. This paper examines a number of designs in globe making which take precession into account.
Elly Dekker, 'The Copernican Globe: A Delayed Conception', Annals of Science 53 (1996), pp. 541-566., 1996
This paper examines the impact in globe making of the change from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican wor... more This paper examines the impact in globe making of the change from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican world view. Next to showing a map of the Earth and the Heavens, in the past the main use of globes has been to demonstrate the natural phenomena as these are observed from a geocentric perspective. In the second half of the eighteenth century some belated attempts were made to construct so-called Copernican globes for this purpose. This late response did not stop the production and use of the common Ptolemaic globe. It is argued that the technological developments of the nineteenth century made the role of the globe as a demonstration model superfluous and thus did more to the downfall of the common Ptolemaic globe than any revolution in science did.
Elly Dekker and Paul Kunitzsch, ‘An Early Islamic Tradition in Globe Making’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 18 (2008/9), pp. 155–211., 2008
The two Islamic celestial globes studied here appear to be the earliest surviving copies with Pto... more The two Islamic celestial globes studied here appear to be the earliest surviving copies with Ptolemaic positions, and are therefore of great interest for the history of globe making.
This paper examines the much-debated ceiling painting by Baldassare Peruzzi on the vault of the l... more This paper examines the much-debated ceiling painting by Baldassare Peruzzi on the vault of the loggia in Agostino Chigi’s Villa Farnesina. To date, most studies have examined the ceiling painting from a largely astrological and mythological point of view. Here an astronomically coherent model is proposed that helps to clarify the structure and several of the individual features of the painting.
In this paper we examine a number of star catalogues, projections and constellation designs relat... more In this paper we examine a number of star catalogues, projections and constellation designs related to the construction of the Vienna celestial maps made in ca. 1435, the Nuremberg maps made in 1503, and the printed maps of Albrecht Dürer published in 1515. We conclude that the star catalogues used in constructing any of these maps are as yet unknown, and that the projections used for making these maps were either not fully understood or not consistently applied. We also show that the constellation designs originally developed within the mathematical tradition but in the fifteenth century were adapted to Renaissance ideas of antiquity. In the last section it is argued that the stellar data on the Nuremberg maps of 1503 is accurately copied from an older, now lost map.
Unter der Aufsicht von Sebastian Sperantius wurden 1503 in Nürnberg von Conrad Heinfogel und einem unbekannten Künstler Sternkarten angefertigt, die in der Tradition der Sternkarten von 1435 stehen, die in der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek aufbewahrt werden. Beide Karten sind eng verwandt mit der von Albrecht Dürer von 1515. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, welcher Sternkatalog und welche Projektion für die Karten von 1503 verwendet wurden und was zum Design der Konstellationen zu sagen ist. Daraus ergeben sich gute Gründe zu der Annahme, dass die Karte von 1503 nicht eigenständig konstruiert wurde, sondern die genaue und saubere Kopie einer heute nicht mehr vorhandenen Sternkarte ist.
... Page 2. 22 Elly Dekker De Leidse sterrenwacht (ca. 1860). van de micrometer als hulpmiddel bi... more ... Page 2. 22 Elly Dekker De Leidse sterrenwacht (ca. 1860). van de micrometer als hulpmiddel bij het meten van afstanden en hoeken aan de kijker.2 Beide ontwikkelingen zijn dan wei niet van Duitse oorsprong, maar zij werden in de negentiende eeuw in de sterrenkunde van ...
... Elly Dekker ... sedert lang mijne aandacht tot zich getrokken en niet onnatuurlijk zoude het ... more ... Elly Dekker ... sedert lang mijne aandacht tot zich getrokken en niet onnatuurlijk zoude het mij hoogst aangenaam wezen bij aldien die openstaande post mij mogt te beurt vallen."' Er zouden nog twintig jaren voorbijgaan voordat Kaiser de kans kreeg een rol van betekenis te ...
Summary
At the turn of the fifteenth century the idea of printing segments of paper to be pasted ... more Summary At the turn of the fifteenth century the idea of printing segments of paper to be pasted on a sphere was born, and this as is well known completely changed the production of globes. A number of sixteenth and seventeenth century methods for the construction of globe gores are known, but it is as yet not clear whether these methods were actually used in practice by globe makers. The present paper examines how the known theoretical methods relate to each other, and next, to what extent these designs link to sets of gores constructed by globe makers of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century.
Abstract
The relationship between the terrestrial and celestial spheres as it was seen around 150... more Abstract The relationship between the terrestrial and celestial spheres as it was seen around 1500 can be understood only within the framework of the accepted ideas about the structure of the universe in which "the doctrine of the sphere" was a major influence. As an illustration, this paper discusses the emphasis in the Renaissance on teaching astronomical methods for finding the latitude and longitude of places, and the geographers' motives to relate Heaven and Earth. It is subsequently shown how, as a consequence, "the doctrine of the sphere" found expression in the design of Gemma Frisius’s cosmographic globe, which is best regarded as an amalgamation of a terrestrial sphere, an armillary sphere and a celestial globe. It is this distorted model of the universe which ultimately developed into the matching pair of terrestrial and celestial globes.
Cartes & Géomantique. Globes et Sphères: Deux mille ans d’Histoire 243-244 (2021), pp. 47-74., 2021
This paper examines how the celestial globe designed by Gerbert d’Aurillac at the end of the 10th... more This paper examines how the celestial globe designed by Gerbert d’Aurillac at the end of the 10th century fits into the long history of mapping the stars. The construction of a semi-sphere with sighting tubes, described in a letter of Gerbert to Constantine of Fleury, is first examined. A crucial feature of this grid is the pair of the ‘arctic’ and ‘antarctic’ circles for the Greek latitude of 36°. In the descriptive tradition the grid provides the guide lines on which the constellations are to be placed on the globe. Finally, we reflect on the thesis by Marco Zuccato, who suggested that Gerbert borrowed the design of his celestial globe from a now lost book written by Dunāsh ibn Tamīm al-Qarawī, a philosopher, physician and astronomer. It is shown that the concepts underlying Gerbert’s spheres do not conform to Arabic ideas on globe making, and that therefore this thesis cannot be maintained.
Alfred Hiatt (ed.), Cartography between Europe and the Islamic World, 1100-1500: Shared Knowledge, Divergent Traditions, Brill, pp. 91-112., 2021
The assimilation of astronomical knowledge transmitted from the Islamic world to Europe is manife... more The assimilation of astronomical knowledge transmitted from the Islamic world to Europe is manifest in many works, yet not one medieval celestial map is currently known to have been made in the Muslim world. Against this background, the pair of celestial hemispheres in a compendium of Hebrew astronomical and astrological treatises, dated to ca. 1400 CE and of Spanish provenance, raises a number of questions. The analysis has made it clear that a tenth-century Islamic globe based on al-Ṣūfī’s iconography served as the model for the Hebrew pair of hemispheres, and that the Hebrew celestial maps are not the link that connects map making in the Islamic World to the Latin West.
Beiträge zur Astronomiegeschichte, Band 13, Acta Historica Astronomiae, 2016
The significance of the Nuremberg maps, an extraordinary pair of celestial hemispheres, made in 1... more The significance of the Nuremberg maps, an extraordinary pair of celestial hemispheres, made in 1503, is shown to exceed the usual aim of celestial cartography to map the stars. The makers of the Nuremberg maps aspired to present the whole universe and expressed this through the decorations surrounding the northern and southern hemispheres. The meaning of the decorations becomes transparent when they are considered in terms of the macrocosm and microcosm.
Elly Dekker, ‘Precession globes’, in Musa Musaei. Studies on Scientific Instruments and Collections in Honour of Mara Miniati, edited by Marco Beretta, Paolo Galluzzi and Carlo Triarico, Florence 2003, 219- 235., 2003
In antiquity, precession was a very novel feature. It is for this reason that the Alexandrine ast... more In antiquity, precession was a very novel feature. It is for this reason that the Alexandrine astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (second century AD) presented a description of a relevant demonstration model, the so-called precession globe, in his Almagest. Before 1500 only one precession globe is extant. However, the interest in precession globes increased in modern times. This paper examines a number of designs in globe making which take precession into account.
Elly Dekker, 'The Copernican Globe: A Delayed Conception', Annals of Science 53 (1996), pp. 541-566., 1996
This paper examines the impact in globe making of the change from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican wor... more This paper examines the impact in globe making of the change from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican world view. Next to showing a map of the Earth and the Heavens, in the past the main use of globes has been to demonstrate the natural phenomena as these are observed from a geocentric perspective. In the second half of the eighteenth century some belated attempts were made to construct so-called Copernican globes for this purpose. This late response did not stop the production and use of the common Ptolemaic globe. It is argued that the technological developments of the nineteenth century made the role of the globe as a demonstration model superfluous and thus did more to the downfall of the common Ptolemaic globe than any revolution in science did.
Elly Dekker and Paul Kunitzsch, ‘An Early Islamic Tradition in Globe Making’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 18 (2008/9), pp. 155–211., 2008
The two Islamic celestial globes studied here appear to be the earliest surviving copies with Pto... more The two Islamic celestial globes studied here appear to be the earliest surviving copies with Ptolemaic positions, and are therefore of great interest for the history of globe making.
This paper examines the much-debated ceiling painting by Baldassare Peruzzi on the vault of the l... more This paper examines the much-debated ceiling painting by Baldassare Peruzzi on the vault of the loggia in Agostino Chigi’s Villa Farnesina. To date, most studies have examined the ceiling painting from a largely astrological and mythological point of view. Here an astronomically coherent model is proposed that helps to clarify the structure and several of the individual features of the painting.
In this paper we examine a number of star catalogues, projections and constellation designs relat... more In this paper we examine a number of star catalogues, projections and constellation designs related to the construction of the Vienna celestial maps made in ca. 1435, the Nuremberg maps made in 1503, and the printed maps of Albrecht Dürer published in 1515. We conclude that the star catalogues used in constructing any of these maps are as yet unknown, and that the projections used for making these maps were either not fully understood or not consistently applied. We also show that the constellation designs originally developed within the mathematical tradition but in the fifteenth century were adapted to Renaissance ideas of antiquity. In the last section it is argued that the stellar data on the Nuremberg maps of 1503 is accurately copied from an older, now lost map.
Unter der Aufsicht von Sebastian Sperantius wurden 1503 in Nürnberg von Conrad Heinfogel und einem unbekannten Künstler Sternkarten angefertigt, die in der Tradition der Sternkarten von 1435 stehen, die in der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek aufbewahrt werden. Beide Karten sind eng verwandt mit der von Albrecht Dürer von 1515. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, welcher Sternkatalog und welche Projektion für die Karten von 1503 verwendet wurden und was zum Design der Konstellationen zu sagen ist. Daraus ergeben sich gute Gründe zu der Annahme, dass die Karte von 1503 nicht eigenständig konstruiert wurde, sondern die genaue und saubere Kopie einer heute nicht mehr vorhandenen Sternkarte ist.
... Page 2. 22 Elly Dekker De Leidse sterrenwacht (ca. 1860). van de micrometer als hulpmiddel bi... more ... Page 2. 22 Elly Dekker De Leidse sterrenwacht (ca. 1860). van de micrometer als hulpmiddel bij het meten van afstanden en hoeken aan de kijker.2 Beide ontwikkelingen zijn dan wei niet van Duitse oorsprong, maar zij werden in de negentiende eeuw in de sterrenkunde van ...
... Elly Dekker ... sedert lang mijne aandacht tot zich getrokken en niet onnatuurlijk zoude het ... more ... Elly Dekker ... sedert lang mijne aandacht tot zich getrokken en niet onnatuurlijk zoude het mij hoogst aangenaam wezen bij aldien die openstaande post mij mogt te beurt vallen."' Er zouden nog twintig jaren voorbijgaan voordat Kaiser de kans kreeg een rol van betekenis te ...
Alessandro Piccolomini’s Early Astronomical Works: II. An Examination of Their Scientific Content, 2024
The Sienese polymath Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-1579) was one of the leading proponents of his ... more The Sienese polymath Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-1579) was one of the leading proponents of his day for the making the natural sciences available to the lay reader in the vernacular. His earliest attempt is comprised of two works: De la Sfera del Mondo and De le Stelle Fisse, both of which were first printed in Venice in 1540. To date, neither volume has received more than cursory scholarly attention. The current study examines the scientific content of these two works, in particular that of De le Stelle Fisse because this book is on the one hand applauded as the first printed star atlas and on the other hand criticized for not meeting cartographic standards of those days. No attention has been paid to the actual purpose for which these maps were designed, namely as part of a method for teaching the constellations and their stars by observation at night instead of by book learning, maps or globes.
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Papers by Elly Dekker
At the turn of the fifteenth century the idea of printing segments of paper to be pasted on a sphere was born, and this as is well known completely changed the production of globes. A number of sixteenth and seventeenth century methods for the construction of globe gores are known, but it is as yet not clear whether these methods were actually used in practice by globe makers. The present paper examines how the known theoretical methods relate to each other, and next, to what extent these designs link to sets of gores constructed by globe makers of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century.
The relationship between the terrestrial and celestial spheres as it was seen around 1500 can be understood only within the framework of the accepted ideas about the structure of the universe in which "the doctrine of the sphere" was a major influence. As an illustration, this paper discusses the emphasis in the Renaissance on teaching astronomical methods for finding the latitude and longitude of places, and the geographers' motives to relate Heaven and Earth. It is subsequently shown how, as a consequence, "the doctrine of the sphere" found expression in the design of Gemma Frisius’s cosmographic globe, which is best regarded as an amalgamation of a terrestrial sphere, an armillary sphere and a celestial globe. It is this distorted model of the universe which ultimately developed into the matching pair of terrestrial and celestial globes.
Unter der Aufsicht von Sebastian Sperantius wurden 1503 in Nürnberg von Conrad Heinfogel und einem unbekannten Künstler Sternkarten angefertigt, die in der Tradition der Sternkarten von 1435 stehen, die in der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek aufbewahrt werden. Beide Karten sind eng verwandt mit der von Albrecht Dürer von 1515. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, welcher Sternkatalog und welche Projektion für die Karten von 1503 verwendet wurden und was zum Design der Konstellationen zu sagen ist. Daraus ergeben sich gute Gründe zu der Annahme, dass die Karte von 1503 nicht eigenständig konstruiert wurde, sondern die genaue und saubere Kopie einer heute nicht mehr vorhandenen Sternkarte ist.
At the turn of the fifteenth century the idea of printing segments of paper to be pasted on a sphere was born, and this as is well known completely changed the production of globes. A number of sixteenth and seventeenth century methods for the construction of globe gores are known, but it is as yet not clear whether these methods were actually used in practice by globe makers. The present paper examines how the known theoretical methods relate to each other, and next, to what extent these designs link to sets of gores constructed by globe makers of the sixteenth and the seventeenth century.
The relationship between the terrestrial and celestial spheres as it was seen around 1500 can be understood only within the framework of the accepted ideas about the structure of the universe in which "the doctrine of the sphere" was a major influence. As an illustration, this paper discusses the emphasis in the Renaissance on teaching astronomical methods for finding the latitude and longitude of places, and the geographers' motives to relate Heaven and Earth. It is subsequently shown how, as a consequence, "the doctrine of the sphere" found expression in the design of Gemma Frisius’s cosmographic globe, which is best regarded as an amalgamation of a terrestrial sphere, an armillary sphere and a celestial globe. It is this distorted model of the universe which ultimately developed into the matching pair of terrestrial and celestial globes.
Unter der Aufsicht von Sebastian Sperantius wurden 1503 in Nürnberg von Conrad Heinfogel und einem unbekannten Künstler Sternkarten angefertigt, die in der Tradition der Sternkarten von 1435 stehen, die in der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek aufbewahrt werden. Beide Karten sind eng verwandt mit der von Albrecht Dürer von 1515. In diesem Beitrag wird untersucht, welcher Sternkatalog und welche Projektion für die Karten von 1503 verwendet wurden und was zum Design der Konstellationen zu sagen ist. Daraus ergeben sich gute Gründe zu der Annahme, dass die Karte von 1503 nicht eigenständig konstruiert wurde, sondern die genaue und saubere Kopie einer heute nicht mehr vorhandenen Sternkarte ist.