French Delamarche geocentric armillary sphere, c. 1800
On application
A French unsigned Delamarche geocentric armillary sphere, around 1800. These types of armillary spheres are also referred to as Ptolemaic and are made to the vision that the earth was the centre of the universe.
The globe is made of a structure of wooden rings (armille) which are placed in horizontal positions to represent from north to south: the circle of the Northern Arctic Pole, the Tropic of Cancer, the equinoctial line or Equator, the Tropic of Capricorn and finally the Southern Arctic Pole.
Wedged in the large vertical armilla of the colure of the equinoxes, and enclosed by the Ecliptic (the ideal circular trajectory described by the sun on the celestial sphere in one year) in this case represented by a slightly transversal band, richly graduated and decorated with the names of the months and the corresponding zodiac symbols
At the centre of the structure is the earth. It is represented as a spherical planet bearing the cartography with continent names, the five circles of the meridian, the arctic, the antarctic, the equator and the ecliptic. Around the earth are connected to thin rotating metal bands, the Sun and the Moon, represented as two circles of different diameters.
This spherical structure is enclosed in the meridian circle (the outermost vertical armilla) and locked into the horizon circle (the largest horizontal armilla) which is fixed, by means of four semicircular band uprights bearing the names and technical data of numerous cities of the world with special emphasis to Spanish cities, to the turned and ebonized base.
Height: 53 centimetre.
