The Book of the Fixed Stars

'Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi's Kitab suwar al-kawakib al-thabita (Book of the Images of the Fixed Stars), composed in Baghdad around 964 CE, is one of the foundational texts of observational astronomy — a systematic catalogue of the 48 Ptolemaic constellations, each cross-checked against al-Sufi's own naked-eye observations and corrected where Ptolemy's data had drifted. This copy, made in the late 15th century, carries the text's original convention: each constellation drawn twice, once as seen from Earth and once mirrored as it would appear from outside the celestial sphere, on a globe. What to notice: the figure is rendered with the fluid, confident line of a scientific diagram meant to be checked against the sky, not merely admired. Al-Sufi's star catalogue was still being used to correct European star tables centuries later — a working document that outlived every empire that copied it.

Maker

'Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi

Date

Copied late 15th century

Medium of the original

Plate

Original held by

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Credit

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00259