Aratus Solensis. [Greek] Aratou Soleôs Phainomena kai diosêmeia. Paris, 1559.
Aratus’s poem on the constellations was written around 275 B.C. and first published in its original Greek in 1499 (Out of This World, item 3). The illustrations in the early editions of Aratus were borrowed from the Hyginus tradition and showed individual constellations, and they were not intended to be star maps. For this edition of 1559, however, real celestial maps were used. In a way, this is quite appropriate, because Aratus had tried to describe the actual appearance of the constellations in the heavens, whereas Hyginus had been much more interested in the mythology behind the constellation figures.
The star maps used in this 1559 edition are copies of the woodcut planispheres by Johann Honter that were first published in the Opera of Claudius Ptolemy in 1541 (Out of This World, item 5). The detail of the southern map above shows Hydra, Crater, and Corvus, with Argo and Canis Major below. Aratus in his poem noted that Argo surprisingly sails through the heavens stern-foremost.
Aratus said of Cetus (below):
“Andromeda, though she cowers a good way off, is pressed by the rush of the mighty monster of the sea…. The South wind drives against her, beneath the Ram and the pair of fishes, the hateful monster, Cetus, set as he is a little above the Starry River.”
The Cetus figure from the 1482 edition of Hyginus (Out of This World, item 1), is shown for comparison.