Pegius’ Sheet of Nativities
Martin Pegius, 1570
$90
Print check at 8 x 12 in: 198 dpi, good. Trimmed 8.5% to the shape of the print.
Shipping to a US address: $24.80 for this piece, from the print room in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Checkout is not open yet. Your cart is saved on this device.
A single printed sheet crowded with five square horoscope figures, ruled in red and black — the creation of the world, the Flood, the kingdom of Israel, the birth of the Virgin, and the nativity of Christ. It opens Martin Pegius's Geburtsstundenbuch, his "book of the hour of birth," printed at Basel in 1570. This is cheap learned print at its busiest: letterpress and woodblock crammed onto one page, sold to readers who wanted the sky's machinery close at hand. We hang it as a specimen of popular science-as-was — not for what it told its buyers, but for how completely it shows a worldview in which the heavens were a public timetable.
- Maker
- Martin Pegius
- Date
- 1570
- Medium of the original
- Plate
- Original held by
- Basel, 1570 · scan: Wikimedia Commons
- Credit
- Basel, 1570 · scan: Wikimedia Commons
- Rights
- Public domain, verified
- Catalogue number
- PA-00464
| Picture | 8 x 12 in |
|---|---|
| Outside size | 9.6 x 13.6 in |
| Depth | 0.9 in (22 mm) |
| Weight | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: shipped weight per size and frame]] |
| Hanging | [[REAL PROOF NEEDED: hanging hardware Prodigi fits to this frame]] |
| Material | Enhanced matte art paper, 200 gsm; acrylic glazing |
| Made in | Charlotte, North Carolina, by Prodigi |
Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.
| Size | dpi | Grade | How it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 x 12 in | 198 | Good | Trimmed 8.5% |
| Size | Why |
|---|---|
| 8 x 10 in | Wrong shape: a 24% crop |
| 11 x 14 in | Wrong shape: a 22% crop |
| 12 x 16 in | Wrong shape: a 19% crop |
| 12 x 18 in | 132 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 16 x 20 in | Wrong shape: a 24% crop |
| 16 x 24 in | 99 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 18 x 24 in | Wrong shape: a 19% crop |
| 20 x 30 in | 79 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 24 x 30 in | Wrong shape: a 24% crop |
| 24 x 36 in | 66 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
| 30 x 40 in | Wrong shape: a 19% crop |
| 36 x 48 in | Wrong shape: a 19% crop |
| 40 x 60 in | 39 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged |
- Scanned
- 2026-10-07
- Master file
- 1,586 x 2,600 px, srgb
- Tone
- Darks 58, lights 254 of 255; 1.1% clipped light, 0% clipped dark
- Colour
- 0% vivid
- Sharpness
- 19.62
- Notes
- Neutrals lean warm (yellow): the paper and varnish of the original, kept as scanned
Shipping for this piece to a US address is $24.80, the print room’s own rate, charged per piece. Checkout shows the total before you pay.
Every piece is printed after you order it, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ships from there. For now we ship to US addresses only.
A piece that arrives damaged, misprinted or in the wrong size is replaced at our cost. The details: shipping and returns and replacements.
The Hermetica
The esoteric tradition’s emblems, astrological figures and the old charts of palmistry and phrenology.
All 58 pieces from The Hermetica
