The Christian Sky

When someone tried to replace the pagan constellations.

Chart: Harmonia Macrocosmica (after Schiller)
Plate: Coeli Stellati Christiani Hemisphaerium
Astronomer: Andreas Cellarius
Date: 1660
Held by: Published Amsterdam · Linda Hall Library

Coeli Stellati Christiani Hemisphaerium

Finish

Format

The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

In 1627 Julius Schiller made an audacious proposal: to wipe the pagan gods from the sky and replace them with Christian figures — the twelve signs of the zodiac becoming the twelve Apostles, the constellations turned to saints and biblical scenes. Cellarius rendered this reimagined heaven in gorgeous detail. It never caught on; the old gods proved too deeply written into the stars to erase. What remains is a beautiful curiosity — a glimpse of the sky as it might have been, had reverence won out over antiquity.

See it on your wall

A window onto the heavens, in your home

The Christian Sky printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

About this reproduction

A faithful reproduction of a public-domain chart held by Published Amsterdam · Linda Hall Library — the work is centuries out of copyright.
Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed pieces sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount (gold-ink editions on specialist press).
Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our charts cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the gold figures, the tiny stars, the cartouches — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.

From the same astronomer