Eufrosino della volpaia or Euphrosynus Vulparia was born in Florence between 1494 and 1500 and died in France after 1547. He belonged to an old family that had earned a high reputation for building scientific instruments and was himself an instrument maker, clockmaker, architect and cartographer.
An astrolabe from 1525 (British Museum, London) and two nocturnals from 1520 (l'Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza / Museo Galileo, Florence) and 1525 (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich) and finally a terrestrial globe from 1542 (Hispanic Society of America, New York) have been preserved from his instruments. The present reproduction follows another instrument from 1527, which is not cataloged anywhere and was sold at auction in 1989. The whereabouts are unknown. The provenance can be deduced from two banners on the reverse side of the instrument; they record the maker and the patron in a mixture of Greek and Latin, with the Latin letters predominantly in Greek.
The complete description of the instrument as PDF for download
