Little is known about Corbinianus Thomas, a Benedictine monk at Salzburg, but his Firmamentum is one of the unsung treasures of celestial cartography. It contained 54 small charts of individual constellations. Thomas used an interesting nomenclature system: Bayer Greek letter, Roman numeral for magnitude, and Arabic numeral for reference to a star catalog. This system originated on the large globes of Coronelli, as did many of Thomas's figures.

Attractive star chart featuring the Camel-Leopard, a constellation that fills a vast region of faint stars surrounded by the brighter and more famous constellations of Ursa Major, Auriga, Perseus, and Cassiopeia. The constellation was probably created by Petrus Plancius and first appeared in 1624 when Camelopardalis was included in Jakob Bartsch's book on the constellations.

References: Warner p. 251.

Condition: B

Damp stain in lower right corner.