Page 222 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

corner is a dedication to him, and in the lower those in Books vm and ix of Ptolemy's astro- This celestial globe, the astrolabe (cat. 121), and
right the imperial privilege granted to Stabius and nomical treatise, the Almagest. the torquetum (cat. 122) were bequeathed to the
the date 1515. The map of the northern sky has in The two celestial maps of 1515 were the first Jagiellonian University by the cleric, astronomer,
its corners the most famous exponents of the four ever published. They testify to the importance of and astrologer, Martin Bylica of Olkusz (1437-
main astronomical traditions: the Greek Aratus Nuremberg not only as a major center of printing 1493). The three objects arrived in 1494 at the
(Aratus Cilix), Ptolemy the Egyptian (Ptolemeus but also of the manufacture of scientific instru- university—where Copernicus was a student
Aegyptius), the Roman Manilius (M. Manilius ments. More than in any other European city, from 1491 to 1494 — and the rector excused all the
Romanus) and the Arab al-Sufi (Azophi Arabus). scholars there seem to have worked with crafts- students and masters from their work in order
The woodcuts do not quite show the skies of the men and artists, a collaboration Diirer commented that they might see these exceptional instru-
northern and southern hemispheres, as the divid- on with enthusiasm in his theoretical publications. ments. Martin Bylica, a pupil of the Cracow
ing line is not the equator but rather the ecliptic, J.M.M. astronomer Andreas Grzymala of Poznari, lec-
the band of the zodiac. Diirer's woodcuts are in tured at Cracow from 1459 to 1463. He met
fact based on two maps of the northern and Regiomontanus in Rome in 1464, and both
southern skies drawn by an anonymous artist, astronomers were summoned to Hungary in
presumably in Nuremberg in 1503, after the spec- 1466. When Regiomontanus left Hungary to
ifications of Konrad Heinfogel and Sebastian 120 settle in Nuremberg, Bylica remained there and
Prenz; Dietrich Ulsen composed the accompany- became the often-consulted astrologer to the
ing Latin verses (Zink 1968,121-127, nos. 99- Attributed to Hans Dorn king, Matthias Corvinus i. He was also a theolo-
100). These maps stem from a tradition that dates Viennese, 1430/1440-1509 gian and became Protonotary Apostolic (the insig-
back to the beginning of the fifteenth century and MARTIN BYLICA'S CELESTIAL GLOBE nium of which surmounts Bylica's coat of arms
is best reflected in a pair of sky charts in the which are engraved on the horizon-plate, as well
Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna (MS 1480 as the date, 1480, in a decorative scroll which
5415, fols. i68r and i/or; see Saxl 1927,150-155, Buda? gives instructions for the use of the sundial on
pis. ix-x). The exact positions of the stars on the brass this globe).
5
1503 maps were not newly calculated. As a result, height 121 (47 /sj; diameter of globe 39.9 (1^/4) The globe and the associated instruments have
the northern sky is shown as it appeared at the references: Ameisenowa 1959; Rosinska 1974; Nagy been attributed to Hans Dorn because he was a
spring equinox of 1424. For Durer's woodcuts, 1975; Pilz 1977, 62-63; Schallaburg 1982, 339-340, member of the King Matthias, Regiomontanus
1987, 35-38
no. 284; Turner
however, the stellar positions were recalculated. and Bylica "circle," because there are no other
The numbers next to the constellations refer to Jagiellonian University, Cracow known instrument makers as likely manufacturers
EUROPE AND THE MEDITERRANEAN WORLD 221