Terrestrial and Celestial Globes Volume 1 / Their History and Construction Including a Consideration of their Value as Aids in the Study of Geography and Astronomy

by Edward Luther Stevenson

Fig. 56a. Western Hemisphere of Vopel Terrestrial Globe.

In the collection of Jodoco del Badia, state archivist of Florence, is a Vopel armillary sphere of the year 1544.[242] The engraved inscription on the Tropic of Cancer reads “Caspar Vopel Me. Matem. hanc sphaeram faciebat coloniae 1544.” Within the eleven armillae is a very small wooden sphere intended to represent a terrestrial globe of wood, about 3 cm. in diameter, on which the equator and the tropics are represented, but no geographical details of any value appear because of the small size of the ball.

A Vopel armillary sphere, apparently like the preceding, bearing the same date and legends, is reported as belonging to the city museum of Salzburg.[243]

A somewhat detailed description, by J. H. Graf, of a Vopel armillary sphere in the possession of the Herr Forstinspector Frey of Bern, appeared in the year 1894, in the Jahresbericht of the Geographical Society of Munich.[244] It is composed of twelve instead of eleven armillae, and at the common center is a small terrestrial ball. The inscriptions appearing on each of the several rings are given by Graf, and the work of Vopel is compared with that of other map makers of the time. On circle 3, for example, counting from the outermost, is a citation from Ovid (Amores I. 6. 59), “Night, love, and wine are not counselors of moderation.” On circle 5, which represents the Tropic of Cancer, is the author and date legend, reading “Caspar Vopellius Mathe. Profes. hanc sphaeram faciebat Coloniae 1545.” On circle 7 we read “Fate rules the world, all stands secure according to unchangeable law, and the long lapse of time is marked by certain course.” On one of the circles movable about the pole of the ecliptic is the inscription “The sun, called Helios, moves through the entire circle of the zodiac in 365 days and about 6 hours.” Graf notes the striking similarity of this sphere to that belonging to the Old Nordiske Museum of Copenhagen, and adds to his paper a reproduction of the terrestrial globe map in plane projection.[245] The feature common to all of the Vopel maps, viz., the connection of the New and the Old Worlds, is particularly emphasized. The name “America” appears only on South America, and rightly so, if at all, in keeping with his geographical ideas.

Günther reports that there may be found in the Hof- und Staatsbibliothek of Munich (Sig. Math. A 41, fol.), a volume of drawings and engravings once belonging to the Nürnberg mathematician, George Hartmann.[246] In this collection there are two sets of celestial globe gores, the one containing nine, originally ten parts, dated February, 1535, the other containing ten undated parts. It is thought by Günther that we have here, in all probability, the earliest example of engraved celestial globe gores, a second example in date being that by Vopel of 1536, and referred to above.

In the year 1859 Mr. Buckingham Smith obtained in the city of Madrid an engraved copper globe of striking scientific value and interest. On the death of Mr. Smith this globe, now known as the Ulpius globe (Fig. [57]), was purchased by Mr. John David Wolf and later was presented to the Library of the New York Historical Society, where it may now be found among that society’s rich collection of historical treasures.[247] It is of large size, having a diameter of 39 cm., rests upon an oak base, and measuring from the bottom of the base to the top of the iron cross which tips the north polar axis, its entire height is 111 cm. The hollow hemispheres of which the ball is composed are made to join at the line of the equator, the parts being held together by iron pins. In addition to its copper equatorial circle, which is neatly graduated and engraved with signs of the zodiac, it has a meridian and an hour circle of brass. On the surface of the globe itself the principal parallels are drawn, and meridians at intervals of thirty degrees, the line of the ecliptic being very prominent, and the boundary line proposed by Pope Alexander VI, marking a terminus for the claims of Spain and Portugal to newly discovered regions, is strikingly conspicuous, with its legend reaching from pole to pole, “Terminus Hispanis et Lusitanis ab Alexandro VI P. M. assignatus.”[248] “Limit to Spain and Portugal set by Pope Alexander VI.”

Fig. 57. Terrestrial Globe of Euphrosynus Ulpius, 1541.

That a globe of such large dimensions, and of date so early, should come down to our day scarcely injured in the slightest degree, is a source of much delight to students of early cartography and of early discovery and exploration.