While the non-discursive, frequently digressive character of the Atlas frustrates any smooth critical narrative of its themes and contents, nine thematic sequences may still be discerned:
Cosmological-genealogical prologue; cartography
A
B
CClassical “pre-imprinting”; an archaeology of artistic “expressive values”; ecstasy and melancholy; pathos formulas of sacrifice and triumph
4
5
6
7
8Transmission and degradation of Greek astronomical thought in medieval Arabic, medieval and Renaissance European astrological imagery (Baghdad, Toledo, Padua, Rimini, Ferrara)
20
21
22
23
23a
24
25
26
27
28-29“Inversion,” ascent, and descent in Renaissance (esp. in the cinquecento) and after; from the muses to Manet
50-51
52
53
54
55
56Virgil, Dürer, Rubens, and the northward migration (translatio); Neptune and nature
57
58
59
60
61-64Baroque excess, art officiel, and Rembrandt’s mediation; theatricality and anatomy
70
71
72
73
74
75Final “inversions”: advertisement and transubstantiation (Eucharist); the sacred and profane
76
77
78
79