Elly Dekker (born 1943, Haarlem, Netherlands) studied theoretical physics and astronomy at Utrecht University and obtained her PhD in 1975 at Leiden University on a thesis ‘Spiral structure and the dynamics of galaxies’ (Physics Reports, 24C (1976), pp. 315–389). From 1978-88 she was curator at the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden. After 1988 she worked as an independent scholar on the history of astronomical models and instruments, such as astrolabes, quadrants, globes, and planetariums. From 1993-1995 she was Sackler fellow of the Royal Museums Greenwich. She was awarded the Caird Medal for her work on the museum's globe collection in 1998. More recently, she worked on celestial maps and globes made before 1500.
Books
Illustrating the Phaenomena: Celestial Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, (Oxford, 2013).
Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza: Catalogue of Orbs, Spheres and Globes, (Florence, 2004).
Globes at Greenwich. A Catalogue of the Globes and Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, with contributions from Silke Ackermann, Jonathan Betts, Maria Blyzinsky, Gloria Clifton, Ann Leane, and Kristen Lippincott, edited by Kristen Lippincott, Peter van der Merwe, and Maria Blyzinsky, (Oxford, Greenwich, 1999).
(with Peter van der Krogt) Globes from the Western World, (London, 1993).
The Leiden Sphere. An exceptional seventeenth-century planetarium, (Leiden, 1987).
Papers
‘Construction and Copy: aspects of the Early History of Celestial Maps’, Beiträge zur Astronomiegeschichte, Band 13, Acta Historica Astronomiae, 58 (2016), pp. 47–93.
‘The Nuremberg maps: a Pythagorean-Platonic view of the cosmos’, Beiträge zur Astronomiegeschichte, Band 13, Acta Historica Astronomiae, 58 (2016), pp. 95–124.
‘Le globe céleste: un pont entre la science et les arts’, in Catherine Hofmann and Helen Richard (eds.), Les globes de Louis XIV: Étude artistique, historique et matérielle, (Paris, 2012), pp. 131–151.
‘The Astronomical Ceiling Paintings of the Benedictine Monastery St. Paul im Lavanttal’, Globe Studies (English version of Der Globusfreund), 57/58 (for 2009/2010) (2011), pp. 129–138.
‘The Provenance of the Stars in the Leiden Aratea Picture book’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LXXIII (2010), pp. 1–37.
‘Caspar Vopel's Ventures in Sixteenth-Century Celestial Cartography’, Imago Mundi, 62: 2 (2010), pp. 161–190.
(with Peter H. Meurer und Renae Satterley), ‘Zwei Himmelskarten nach Dürer bei Johannes Noviomagus (Köln 1537)’, Cartographica Helvetica, 42 (2010), pp. 39–53.
‘The Quadrans Novus’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 130 (2010), pp. 72–82.
‘Featuring the First Greek Celestial Globe’, Globe Studies (English version of Der Globusfreund), 55/56 (for 2007/2008) (2009), pp. 133–152.
(with Paul Kunitzsch), ‘An Early Islamic Tradition in Globe Making’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften, 18 (2008/9), pp. 155–212.
‘With his sharp lok perseth the sonne: A New Quadrant from Canterbury’, Annals of Science, 65:2 (2008), pp. 201–220.
‘Carolingian Planetary Observations’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 39 (2008), pp. 77–90.
‘A Watermark of Eudoxan Astronomy’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 39 (2008), pp. 223–238.
‘Globes in Renaissance Europe’, in David Woodward (ed.), Cartography in the European Renaissance, vol. 3 of The History of Cartography, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp. 135–173.
‘Exploring the Retes of Astrolabes’, in Koenraad van Cleempoel, Astrolabes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Astrolabes in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, (Oxford, 2005), pp. 47–71.
‘Precession globes’, in Marco Beretta, Paolo Galluzzi and Carlo Triarico (eds.), Musa Musaei. Studies on Scientific Instruments and Collections in Honour of Mara Miniati, (Florence, 2003), pp. 219– 235.
‘Innovations in the Making of Celestial Globes’, Globe Studies (English version of Der Globusfreund), 49/50 (2001/2002), pp. 61–79.
‘The Doctrine of the Sphere: A Forgotten Chapter in the History of Globes’, Globe Studies (English version of Der Globusfreund), 49/50 (2001/2002), pp. 25–44.
‘Cartographic Grids from Iran: an Early Version of the Retro-azimuthal Orthographic Projection?’, The Cartographic Journal, 47 (2000), pp. 109–116.
‘A Close Look at Two Astrolabes and their Star Tables’, in Menso Folkerts and Richard Lorch (eds.), Sic itur ad astra. Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften. Festschrift für den Arabisten Paul Kunitzsch zum 70. Geburtstag, (Wiesbaden, 2000), pp. 177–215.
‘Of Spheres and Shadows’, in Kristen Lippincott (ed.), The Story of Time, (London, 1999), pp. 96–99.
(with Kristen Lippincott), ‘The Scientific Instruments in Holbein's Ambassadors: A Re-examination’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LXII (1999), pp. 93–125.
‘The Globes in Holbein's Painting The Ambassadors’, Der Globusfreund, 47/48 (1999), pp. 19–37 (with a German translation on pp. 38–52).
(with Gerard Turner), ‘An Unusual Elizabethan Silver Globe by Charles Whitwell’, The Antiquaries Journal, 77 (1997), pp. 393–401.
‘The Copernican Globe: A Delayed Conception’, Annals of Science, 53 (1996), pp. 541–566.
‘Andromède sur les globes célestes des XVI et XVII sciècles’, in Françoise Siguret et Alain Laframboise (eds.), Andromède ou le héros à l'épreuve de la beauté, Actes du colloque international organisé au musée du Louvre par l'université de Montreal et le Service culturel du musée du Louvre les 3 et 4 février 1995, (Paris, 1996), pp. 403–423.
(with Paul Kunitzsch), ‘The Stars on the Rete of the so-called Carolingian Astrolabe’, in Josep Casulleras and Julio Samsó (eds.), From Bagdad to Barcelona. Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences in Honour of Prof. Juan Vernet, (Barcelona, 1996), pp. 655–672.
‘An Unrecorded Medieval Astrolabe Quadrant, c. 1300’, Annals of Science, 52 (1995), pp. 1–47.
‘Conspicuous Features on Sixteenth-century Celestial Globes’, Der Globusfreund, 43/44 (1995), pp. 77–98.
(with Peter van der Krogt), ‘De Globes van Gerard Mercator’, in M. Watelet (ed.): Gerardus Mercator Rupelmondanus, (Antwerpen, 1994), pp. 242–267.
(with Gerard Turner ), ‘De Astrolabia van Gerard Mercator’, in M. Watelet (ed.): Gerardus Mercator Rupelmondanus (Antwerpen, 1994), pp. 178–191.
‘Epacts on Instruments, their Definition and Use’, Annals of Science, 50 (1993), pp. 303–324.
‘Frederik Kaiser and His Steady Boat Compass with Nightly Illumination’, in R. W. G. Anderson, J. A. Bennet and W. F. Ryan (eds.), Making instruments count, (Aldershot, 1993), pp. 268–277.
(with Gerard Turner), ‘An Astrolabe Attributed to Gerard Mercator, c. 1570’, Annals of Science, 50 (1993), pp. 403–443.
‘A Sundial Delineator by Anthony Sneewins’, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society, 34 (1992), pp. 3–5.
‘Der Himmelsglobus–Eine Welt für sich’, in Gerhard Bott (ed.), Focus Behaim Globus, (Nürnberg, 1992), vol. I, pp. 89–100.
‘The Light and the Dark: A Reassessment of the Discovery of the Coalsack Nebula, the Magellanic Clouds and the Southern Cross’, Annals of Science, 47 (1990), pp. 529–560.
‘From a World Ruling Time to a Time-ruled World’, in A. Turner (ed.), Time. Exhibition catalogue, (The Hague, 1990), pp. 24–32.
(with Ronald Breugelmans), ‘Adriaan Anthonisz and the Gregorian Calendar’, in Ton Croiset van Uchelen, Koert van der Horst and Günther Schilder (eds.), Theatrum Orbis Librorum, (Utrecht, 1989), pp. 137–157.
‘Early Explorations of the Southern Celestial Sky’, in Annals of Science 44 (1987), pp. 439–470.
‘On the dispersal of knowledge of the southern celestial sky’, Der Globusfreund, 35-37 (1987), pp. 211–230.
