Schöner celestial globe

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Schöner celestial globe
Manufacturer	Johann Schöner
Production years	1533-35
Production location	Nuremberg, Germany

This globe by Johann Schöner (sometimes written Schoener or Schoner) is thought to be the oldest surviving printed celestial globe; the figures on the southern hemisphere are still well preserved although some on the northern hemisphere have been partly obliterated. The constellations shown are after Ptolemy, with names in Latin, while individual star names are mostly in Arabic.

[edit] How it works

The globe is marked with ecliptic, equatorial, tropic and arctic circles. The ecliptic circle is divided in degrees (10,20,30 for each sign of the Zodiac), while the equatorial circle is marked in ten-degree intervals. The brass meridian circle has a small hour circle at the North Pole, with an hour hand fixed to the globe’s axis and rotating with it. The brass horizon circle is marked in four sectors of 90 degrees and carries the four compass points.

The globe sits on an ornamental tripod base, with a plum bob to hang over a small compass in the recess of one of the legs. It was previously attributed to Peter Apianus and is very similar to the globe depicted in Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors of 1533.

Holbein The Ambassadors which can be seen at the National Gallery, London.

[edit] In the Science Museum

Inv. No: 1910-249, on loan from the Royal Astronomical Society.

[edit] Further Information

• Dekker, E., Lippincott, K. The Scientific Instruments in Holbein's Ambassadors: A Re-Examination. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 62, (1999), pp. 93-125