Caspar Vopel Explained

Caspar Vopel (1511–1561) was a German cartographer and instrument maker. Born in Medebach, he studied mathematics and medicine at the University of Cologne in 1526–1529.[1] He taught mathematics at the Gymnasium of Cologne and in the early 1530s established a workshop to produce celestial and terrestrial globes, armillary spheres, sundials, quadrants and astrolabes.[1] Vopel is sometimes credited with the promotion of the ancient asterism Coma Berenices to constellation status.[2] An exemplar of Vopel’s 1536 globe is held at Tenri University Library, Nara.[3] Vopel’s 1536 globe was copied on the 1552 globe of Jacques de la Garde of Blois, on the globe made by Jean Naze of Lyon in 1560, on Christoph Schniepp’s globe of c.1600, on the 1603 Nicolai Globe and on the Oterschaden globe of similar date.[4] In 1545 he began to prepare maps and atlases.[1] His mappemonde of 1545 is titled NOVA ET INTEGRA VNIVERSALISQVE ORBIS TOTIVS IVXTA GERMANVM NEOTERICORVM TRADITIONEM DESCRIPTIO (A New Complete and Universal Description of the Whole World, according to the Modern German Tradition).[5] An inscription on it describes America and its people drawn from the Mundus Novus:

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Caspar Vopel. Museum of the History of Science. 25 November 2016.
  2. Web site: Coma Berenices . Ian . Ridpath . Star Tales . 11 April 2012.
  3. 織田武雄 (Oda Takeo), 天理図書館蔵 Vopellの地球儀について(Vopell’s terrestrial globe at Tenri University Library), ビブリア: 天理図書館報 (Biblia: Tenri Library Bulletin), 23, (1962): 449.
  4. Robert J. King, "The Southern Continent on the Globe by Guillaume Nicolai Belga, Lyon, 1603", The Great Circle, vol.45, no.2, 2024, pp.1-36.
  5. A copy of the 1558 Venice edition is held at the Houghton Library, Harvard University.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:1196240?buttons=y