Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Volume 2 / Their History and Construction Including a Consideration of their Value as Aids in the Study of Geography and Astronomy

by Edward Luther Stevenson

[66] Schimpfer was a native of Nürnberg and active in his profession about the middle of the seventeenth century.

[67] Bartholomaei, op. cit.

[68] Bartholomaei, referring to the popularity of Weigel as a lecturer, states that some of his lectures were given in the open because there was no available room sufficiently large to accommodate his hearers.

[69] Weigel, E. Sphaerica Euclidea methodo conscripta; accessit globorum heraldicorum ipsiusque pancosmi descriptio et usus. Jenae, 1688; Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, pp. 420-427. In a very early day the Venerable Bede had suggested a change from the heathen names of the several constellations to Christian names. See in this connection Schiller, J. Coelum stellatum christianum. Augsburg, 1627.

Schiller was a pupil of the famous astronomer, Johannes Bayer, from whom he probably received his impulse to inaugurate a reform in the matter of naming the constellations. Schiller felt much annoyed that heathen names for stars and star groups should be retained by Christian peoples, and it was probably with Bayer that he worked out his scheme for a new nomenclature. To the twelve signs of the zodiac, for example, he gave the names of the twelve apostles. For the constellation Perseus he proposed the Apostle Paul, for the Great Bear the Ship of Peter, for Hercules the Three Kings, for Cassiopeia the name Maria Magdalena, for Auriga Saint Jerome; he further proposed to change the name Ophiuchus to Pope Benedict, Pegasus to the Angel Gabriel, Orion to Joseph, Canis Major to King David, the Ship Argo to the Ark of Noe, the Centaur to Abraham, the Peacock to Eve.

It was proposed to change the name Sun to Christ, the Moon to Maria, Saturn to Adam, Jupiter to Moses, Mars to Joshua, Venus to John the Baptist, and Mercury to Elias.

The suggestions of Schiller, of Bayer, and of their contemporaries, or near contemporaries, Schickard, Bartsch, and Harsdörfer, with the added support of Weigel, seem to have found little favor among astronomers.

[70] Weigel, E. Universi corporis pansophici prodromus. Jena, 1672; same author. Beschreibung der verbesserten Himmels- und Erdgloben. Jena, 1681.

[71] Coronelli, op. cit., pp. 331-332; Wolf, op. cit., pp. 426-427, n. 16; Günther-Fiorini, op. cit., p. 85, n.

[72] Fiorini, op. cit., pp. 308-310.