Long known in the Islamic world, the celestial globe finally appeared in Europe during the Renaissance. The practice arose of issuing pairs of globes, one of the earth and one of the heavens, to adorn the libraries of princes and scholars. Those of Johann Sch ner, Gemma Frisius, and Gerard Mercator are relatively small and utilitarian, whereas latter globes by Jacob van Langeren, Willem Blaeu, and Jodocus Hondius are larger and show the growing artistic delight globemakers took in the constellations. The celestial globe had a significant impact on celestial cartography. Most star charts drawn during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries mapped the constellations in reverse, as shown on a globe.
Globes are models of the starry sphere with viewers standing on the outside.
The cycle of the constellations about the north celestial pole appears in reverse on celestial globes, so that the Zodiac proceeds counterclockwise instead of clockwise. Mapmakers carried this convention over into star maps, conceiving of two-dimensional maps as portions of the sphere. However, some chose to depart from the convention and show the constellations as they appeared from earth. The first star charts atlases, commonly showing the forty-eight constellations, appeared during the sixteenth century. One of the finest of these was Giovanni Gallucci's Theatrum Mundi of 1558, in which Gallucci positioned the principal stars within vigorously drawn pictures of the constellations.