What are the parts of the universe? How are they arranged? Where are its center and its boundaries? What forces control its motion? Cosmographical Glass features more than 100 astronomical and mythical diagrams from books printed before 1700, revealing how people of the Renaissance answered these complicated questions. Throughout this period, which one historian has called "the most psychically disturbed era in European history," the universe was depicted as a rational arrangement of disparate parts. The author bridges the gap between the Renaissance and today by explaining in detail these astronomical, mythical, and alchemical maps of the universe.

Foreword
Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
I. Creation
II. The Geocentric Universe
III. Copernicus and His Consequences
IV. The Pythagorean-Platonic Tradition
V. The Human Microcosm
VI. Contingent Systems
Notes
Index

S. K. Heninger, Jr. is a former Alumni Distinguished Professor of English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Touches of Sweet Harmony: Pythagorean Cosmology and Renaissance Poetics, The Handbook of Renaissance Meteorology, and Sidney and Spenser: The Poet as Maker. He specializes in literature of the English Renaissance.

"A remarkably clear picture of Renaissance culture through its imaginative speculations on the order of the universe, and a valuable addition to the growing body of work which is examining the magical and metaphorical bases of early modern science."—The Sixteenth Century Journal

"Each figure is analyzed and set in context by . . . a connected and readable exposition illustrated in detail."—Scientific American

"Will be of great interest not only to students of Renaissance cosmology but also to anyone interested in the arts that influenced and were influenced by cosmology."—Shakespeare Quarterly

"Professor Heninger has produced not only a very beautiful and interesting book, but one which makes easily accessible to all readers much information concerning pre-modern astronomy and geography."—University of Toronto Quarterly

"Heninger has used the fine resources of the Huntington Library to produce scholarship which begins in the small detail of a picture and ends in a view of the entire universe."—Milton Quarterly