Celestial Atlas: A Journey in the Sky through Maps

Since the remote past Man has aspired to understand and represent the secrets of the cosmos. Yet illustrating the sky was no simple matter. The first attempt to do so was made by the ancient Greeks, followed by the Arabs in the 9th century. But it was the 16th century that marked the beginning of the "golden age" of celestial cartography, a period that saw the production of matchless masterpieces and that ended in the 19th century, when the development of modern telescopes brought to an end the bond between mythology and the heavens and inaugurated the age of modern cartography.