Twenty-eight day lunar cycle, 1646.

Plate taken from 'Ars Magna Lucis Et Umbrae' ('The Great Art of Light and Shadow') (published 1646) by the Jesuit priest and scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). In this book Kircher discused eclipses, comets and astrological influences, as well as colour, optics, sundials and magic lanterns. His major concern was with heavenly bodies believing, like Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), that the Sun and Moon circled the Earth, while the other five planets circled the Sun.