The Astronomicum Caesareum (1540) by the German mathematician, astronomer and cartographer Petrus Apianus was utilized by the privileged – together with the Holy Roman emperor Charles V, who commissioned it, and the Tudor king Henry VIII – to search out steerage, data and destiny within the stars. Produced over eight years at Apianus’s printing press in Bavaria, it was additionally terribly lovely, with hand-coloured illustrations, rotating paper dials and silk threads serving to to steer its proprietor’s astrological forecast. Taking viewers on a guided tour of one of many unique copies of the Astronomicum Caesareum, this brief from the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York Metropolis explores the e book’s class, intricacy and performance. Via this, the video conveys the prevalence of astrology within the sixteenth century, and the way the e book emerged in an unsure world through which long-held beliefs – together with geocentrism – had been being upended.
