Caspar Vopel

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. 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. Vopel is sometimes credited with the promotion of the ancient asterism Coma Berenices to constellation status. An exemplar of Vopel’s 1536 globe is held at Tenri University Library, Nara. 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. In 1545 he began to prepare maps and atlases. His mappemonde of 1545 is titled NOVA ET INTEGRA VNIVERSALISQVE ORBIS TOTIVS IVXTA GERMANVM NEOTERICORVM TRADITIONEM DESCRIPTIO. An inscription on it describes America and its people drawn from the Mundus Novus:America, which Americo Vespucci called a New World continent or land; the name was taken from Americo Vespucci, the discoverer of the same; on the other hand, in Castile by choice they call it Terra Firma, and for that reason it is now not undeservedly called the Fourth Part of the World beyond the Equator, where it is observed that the manners of the people, their humanity, the fertility of the soil, temperance of the air and salubrity of the climate testify that they are born in more cultivated regions and more crowded with inhabitants than any other nation, be it in Asia, Europe or Africa, etc. The inhabitants lie with each other promiscuously taking no account of blood relationship and take as many wives as they please; others feed on human flesh, so much so that, it is said, a father feeds upon his children and they in turn upon the parents they are born of, according to the results of chance; and they swim like animals of the s