CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY IN LITERATURE AND ART 697
Sky Map of the Northern Hemisphere, by Albrecht Durer (1471-1528). Woodcut, 1515; 163 / 4 X
163 / 4 in. The Latin title means "Figures of the northern sky with the twelve signs of the
Zodiac." Diirer's sky-maps are patterned on Arab celestial maps, but this is one of the
earliest Renaissance works in which the classical figures resume their classical forms. Her-
cules (seen just below and to the right of center) has his club and lionskin; Perseus (just
above and to the left of center) holds the Gorgon's head (caput Méduse) instead of the
Arabic monster, Algol. Individual stars are indicated by numbers corresponding to Books
8 and 9 of Ptolemy's Almagest. The signs of the Zodiac encircle the map, and in the cor-
ners are three ancient writers on astronomy and one medieval scholar: Aratus of Cilicia
(third century B.c.); Ptolemy of Egypt (second century A.D.); Al Sufi, written here as Azophi
(Abdul Rahman, Arab astronomer of the tenth century A.D.); and Manilius of Rome (early
first century A.D.). Diirer made the original version of this map in 1503, showing the heav-
ens as they were in 1499-1500. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Harris Brisbane
Dick Fund, 1951.)