This collection of thirteen essays had its genesis in a conference held at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel in 2013. The editors write an engaging introduction on the multiplicity of ways that one can study the heavens, both real and imaginary. The book is divided into four parts that explore a wide spectrum of interdisciplinary studies, mainly from the areas of art, philosophy, science, and theology.

Part 1, “Himmelsbilder,” is devoted to images of the heavens, whether scientific, mythological, or artistic. Claus Zittel focuses on Claude Mellan's engravings of the moon made from his observations through a telescope. Zittel emphasizes the discourse between artists and scientists around the lunar images. Patrizia Solombrino, on the other hand, examines Julius Schiller's Coelum Stellatum Christianum and his efforts to provide a Christian interpretation of the celestial chart using Johannes Bayer's Uranometria as his point of departure. Markus Bauer studies images of falling from the sky: using the mythological backdrop and analysis of the painting Daedalus and Icarus, attributed to Anthony van Dyck, Bauer examines the far-reaching effects of the Icarus myth in a broad range of inquiries.

Part 2, “Theaterhimmel,” deals with real and imaginary images of the sky in Baroque opera, aerostatic figures, and architectonic spaces. Bernhard Jahn shows how the sky in operas (Opernhimmel) in the Baroque period adopted the mechanical, painted, poetic, and musical arts. The operas examined include Pietro Antonio Cestis's Il Pomo d'oro and Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea. Stephan Oettermann's essay looks at Johann Karl Enslen and his aerostatic figures, which flew in the skies of nineteenth-century Europe. Wolfgang Brückle focuses on the sky's appearance within buildings. He looks at the boundaries of interior spaces and the framing of images of nature from the Enlightenment until today. Brückle also examines Étienne-Louis Boullée's plans for creating a visionary design for a Cenotaph celebrating Isaac Newton and elucidates Boullée's fondness for poetic expression in structures. In Skyspace, in Arizona's Roden Crater, the contemporary artist James Turrell frames a view of the sky inside a building, creating an aesthetic experience. In part 3, “Himmelstheater,” Jörg Jochen Berns presents six early modern, single-leaf prints that depict prodigious figures and events in the skies; Hole Rössler examines frightening images in the sky from antiquity to the aerial attacks of World War II; Thomas Rahn looks at the sky as a medium for numinous and artificial writing. For example, the French author Jacques Gaffarel's methodology included interpreting the constellations with the use of Hebrew letters. Rahn also turns to Emperor Constantine's vision of the cross and André Félibien's description of the fireworks in the garden of Versailles in 1668 before examining early twentieth-century aerial advertising.

Part 4, “Transzendente Himmel,” begins with David Ganz's study of visions of heaven in the ceiling paintings of Baroque churches. Ganz examines the transcendental vision that brings the heavenly sphere closer to the spectator. Christian Hecht's contribution focuses on an iconographic study of how sacred light is represented. The seventeenth-century Christian mystic, Giuseppe da Copertino, known for his levitations, is the subject of Joseph Imorde's essay. Imorde describes Giuseppe as the summit of anti-rationalism. Giuseppe was an exemplary figure among nineteenth-century individuals interested in the paranormal. The book's final contribution, by Günter Butzer, compares the search for the artificial paradise in Dante's Paradiso, Baudelaire's Les paradis artificiels, and Milton's Paradise Lost. Butzer draws parallels among the meditative approaches of the three authors. Dante has the visio Dei as his goal. Baudelaire seeks paradise by means of drug-induced intoxication, and Milton expounds on the Fall of man (“Sündenfall,” 378) and on the taste (desire) and the consequences of eating the forbidden fruit.

Despite the remarkably broad scope, the book's four sections create a cohesive framework. This collection will appeal to scholars of art history and the history of ideas. The volume is handsomely produced and richly illustrated with black-and-white images and fine color plates. This book is fascinating and covers a topic that is rarely encountered in the literature.