Astronomical Images : Idea of the Universe

Vincenzo Maria Coronelli

Astronomical Images

The Idea dell'universo of Vincenzo Maria Coronelli (1650-1718) is a magnificent copperplate print, spanning two folios, which appeared in the first volume of his Atlante Veneto (1690; republished in 1691 and 1695), and was reused in such later works as the Globi differenti (1701) and Cronologia universale (1707). Rather than a single diagram, it comprises a range of figures conveying astronomical, astrological, cosmological, and calendrical information. The majority of the diagrams displayed are of types found if not in the Atlas-tradition (the cosmographic genre to which the Atlante Veneto directly belonged), then in the mathematical cosmographies of which Coronelli's own Epitome cosmografica (1693) is a late example. Close equivalents to the majority of the figures surrounding the central diagrams can thus be identified in works such as Martin WaldseemÃ¼ller's Cosmographiae introductio (1507) and Francesco Maurolyco's Cosmographia in tres dialogos (1543). The diagrams given particular prominence in the centre of the Idea belong to three types. At the four corners, the figures labelled A, B, C, and D offer the times of sunrise, of midday, of the New Moon and of the Full Moon for different calendar dates and years in the solar and lunar cycles. The large central diagram carries astrological information, and bears a close resemblance to a paper instrument published by Gerard Mercator in 1551. At the top of the Idea, a complex image combines a traditional 'nested sphere' diagram of the heavens and Elements with astrological, calendrical and cartographical information. Surrounding these large central images is a border containing a further twenty-eight circular diagrams, offering further calendrical data and reference material. Coronelli dedicated the Idea to Abbot Sebastian Venier, Venetian patrician. Coronelli himself was a Venetian and a member of the Friars Minor Conventual, having entered the Order in 1665, and he advertised himself as the cosmographer to the Venetian Republic on the title-page of the Atlante Veneto.