The Mapping of the Heavens

Gilbert Taylor

Patterned after his "Image of the World" (1994), an album of historical maps of Earth, the latest Whitfield looks up to the stars, as celestial illustrators through the ages have depicted them. Starting from chiseled Babylonian representations of the Zodiac, Whitfield proceeds to the illumination-type pictures of Ptolemaic spheres, dating from medieval Europe, before devoting most of the book to the period from Copernicus through the midnineteenth century. By that time, cartographic sobriety had banished pictures from astronomical maps, but only after a bacchanal of color and fancy reigned as figures of classical constellations--and some weird innovations like royal coats of arms--overwhelmed the stars. The telescope gradually gained the upper hand over the palette, and Whitfield's text ably records the advance of scientific accuracy over astrologic artistry. Of his score of images, most come from the British Library, a sponsor of this colorful work that should have particular appeal to map lovers.