The Bible in Pictures

Night. A family moves along the edge of a wood: the man holds a small torch, the woman rides. Far to the left shepherds sit by a fire. Above everything stands a sky full of stars, and the full moon is mirrored in the water.

Elsheimer painted this small copper plate in Rome in 1609, the year before his death. It is regarded as the first painting to show the Milky Way as a band of single stars; in the same year Galileo first turned a telescope on the sky. An engraving soon carried the composition across Europe.

The Milky Way runs diagonally across the sky, star by star.

The Milky Way runs diagonally across the sky, star by star.

Joseph's torch lights only the three of them and the donkey.

Joseph's torch lights only the three of them and the donkey.

The moon and its reflection: the third and largest light of the picture.

The moon and its reflection: the third and largest light of the picture.