First edition with the elaborate border, preceded by a ‘proof’ example, without the border dedicated to the Emperor Leopold, bound into a 1629 edition of Johannes Kepler’s ‘Tabulae Rudolphinae’, now at the University of Kiel. All known surviving examples of the current map ‘must have been issued considerably later’ than Johannes Walch’s inscribed date of 1630, ‘certainly after 1658, when the Emperor Leopold, to whom the map is dedicated, came to the throne’ (Shirley 2001).

For a long time Eckebrecht's map was believed to be the first to show the Dutch landings in Australia but this claim is now superseded by the Cornelis Danckerts and Melchior Tavernier double-hemisphere map of the world, ‘

e Universelle de Tout le Monde’ (1628).

However, the Walch map combines the discoveries on the west coast of Australia, by Dirk Hartog (1616), Frederick de Houtman (1619), and those of Jan Cartensz further north, in 1623. ‘New Guinea is erroneously linked to Australia. On the North American continent, Eckebrecht records the new colonies on the east coast: ‘Nova Britannia’, ‘Nova Anglia’, New South Wales (located south of Button's or Hudson's Bay) and ‘Nova Belgium’. Baffin's Bay is also marked. In the west, California is an island with the lands beyond still recognised as ‘Nova Albion’.

Philip Eckebrecht (1594–1667) prepared this map for his friend, the German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, to be used in conjunction with his new star tables as published in his ‘Tabulae Rudolphinae, quibus astronomicae scientiae temporum longinquitate collapsae restauratio Continetur’ (1627). As such, it is the first map to equate one hour of time, astronomically determined, to 15° of longitude. Only one other example of this first issue is known, bound into a copy of the ‘Tabula’ (1629) at the University of Kiel.

The map’s prime meridian is Uraniborg, 

’s observatory on the Swedish island of Ven. The map's arrangement of one bifurcated hemisphere on either side of a complete hemisphere facilitates the calculation of longitude using Johannes Kepler's star tables. The design harks back to Georg Braun's inspiring wall map of 1574 which is also headed by the imperial double-headed eagle and has the continents in bifurcated form.

A note in the lower right-hand part of the map states that it was designed by Philip Eckebrecht of Nuremberg and engraved by J.P. Walch in 1630. At that time, the geography depicted in the map would have been very current.

One of the most visually striking of all world maps, surmounted by the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. Scientifically, it is the first published map to equate one hour of time, astronomically determined, to 15° of longitude. In 1630, when it was first engraved, it was one of the first maps to show any of the Dutch 'discoveries' of Australia.

Philip Eckebrecht (1594–1667) prepared this map for his friend, the German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, to be used in conjunction with his new star tables as published in his ‘Tabulae Rudolphinae’ (1627). Only one other example of this first issue is known, bound into a copy of the ‘Tabulae’ (1629) at the University of Kiel. 

Star tables, used to record the position of planets in relation to fixed stars on any given date, were based on a geocentric (earth-centred) solar system until Nicolaus Copernicus’s ‘De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium’ (1543) demonstrated that the earth rotates around the sun. This revelation made previous star tables inherently flawed; but in 1551 a first attempt to compile star tables based on a heliocentric (stationary sun as the centre) universe was also inaccurate.

Not until the German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler, and the Danish astronomer 

, did better tables become available. One essential ingredient was Kepler’s discovery that the planets follow an elliptical orbit; he also drew on Brahe’s observations of the heavens and aided his calculations with logarithms. In 1627 the new, so-called Rudolphine Tables were published, named in honour of the late Holy Roman Emperor.

One of the most visually striking of all world maps, surmounted by the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. Scientifically, it is the first published map to “equate one hour of time, astronomically determined, to 15 degrees of longitude” (Smithsonian). In 1630, when it was first engraved, it was one of the first maps to show any of the Dutch discoveries of Australia.

Double-page and folding copperplate engraved bifurcated hemisphere on either side of a complete hemisphere map of the world, with an elaborate decorative border.

Eckebrecht's Decorative World Map