Instruments · Scaphe sundial
Hemispherical sundial, brass. Inscribed: "Hyeronimus Vulpariae Florentinus Faciebat A.D. MDLXXX". On octagonal base, 7 inches wide
- Maker / attribution
- Vulpariae, Hyeronimus (maker)
- Date
- 1580
- Historical period
- Renaissance Horology (1400 – 1600)
- Country of origin
- Italy
- Place
- Florence, Firenze, Tuscany, Italy, Florence
- Object type
- Scaphe sundial
- Dimensions
- overall: 50 mm x 198 mm x 198 mm, 1.416 kg
- Holding institution
- Science Museum Group, London
- Accession / object no.
- 1952-233
- Credit line
- Mr. H. E. Backer
- Catalogue title (original)
- Hemispherical sundial
Record summary
Held and catalogued by Science Museum Group, London (object number 1952-233), this is a scaphe sundial by Vulpariae, Hyeronimus, made in Florence, Firenze, Tuscany, Italy, Florence, dated 1580. The Atlas places it in the Renaissance Horology period (1400 – 1600) of its Instruments collection. Recorded dimensions: overall: 50 mm x 198 mm x 198 mm, 1.416 kg. The record is illustrated with 2 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
The source record does not include a narrative description. The structured fields above are reproduced from it.
Historical context
Renaissance Horology (1400 – 1600)
Spring power makes clocks portable; Nuremberg and Augsburg produce the first watches; the Prague Orloj is built.
Instrument-making flourished in Nuremberg, Augsburg, Louvain and London: ivory diptych dials, astronomical compendia, astrolabes and nocturnals for wealthy patrons, navigators and scholars.
Read the period in the timelineMore instruments from this periodEarlier: Medieval Period
Atlas type guide
Sundials and solar time-finders
A sundial tells time from the position of a shadow cast by a gnomon or style. Because the sun's apparent motion depends on latitude, every fixed dial is laid out for a particular latitude, and portable dials either carry a latitude scale or are made for one region. Sundials show local apparent solar time, which drifts against mean (clock) time by up to about sixteen minutes over the year — the equation of time.
Portable dials were the pocket instruments of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Nuremberg and Augsburg workshops produced folding ivory diptych dials with inset compasses; English and French makers sold brass horizontal dials, ring dials and the Butterfield type; Japanese and Chinese makers had their own traditions of compass dials. After mechanical watches became reliable, dials remained in use for setting them, and nineteenth-century heliochronometers were built to correct directly for the equation of time.
What to look for
- The latitude engraved on the dial plate or a latitude arc on the gnomon — it shows where the dial was meant to be used.
- The type of hour lines: equal (equinoctial) hours, Italian or Babylonian hours counted from sunset or sunrise, or unequal temporal hours on early and Islamic instruments.
- An inset magnetic compass and whether a magnetic-declination mark is drawn on its card — a useful dating clue because declination changes over time.
- Maker's signatures and town marks: Nuremberg compass-makers (Kompassmacher) often struck a personal mark and the town's punch.
- Additional scales such as lunar volvelles, wind roses, perpetual calendars or lists of cities with their latitudes.
Dating clues
- Ivory diptych dials are characteristic of Nuremberg between about 1500 and 1700.
- Butterfield-type dials with a bird-shaped adjustable gnomon point to Paris workshops from the late seventeenth century onward.
- Equation-of-time tables engraved on the plate became common after the mid-seventeenth century, once pendulum clocks made the difference between solar and mean time obvious.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:The history timeline
Related records
Instruments · 1495-1505
Astrolabe, Italy, 1495-1505
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1501-1600
Brass quadrant sundial, 6½-inch radius, with Italian hours, Europe, 1501-1600 (see note).
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1530-1640
Sundial, Italy, 1530-1640
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1550-1570
Cubical sun-dial (30-81 V. and A. M. Reg), in wood, painted in distemper, Italian, 1550-1570, 4 inch cube.
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1572
Brass planispheric astrolabe, 22 stars on rete, Rojas projection on back, Italian, dated 1572
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1587
Sundial by Stephanus, F. F., Italy, 1587
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1592
Rectangular reclining sundial, boxwood, for Italian hours by Hieronymus Vulparia, Florence, Italy, 1592. For use at latitude 42° (Rome) (see note).
Science Museum Group, London
Instruments · 1425-1435
Astrolabe, 1425-1435
Science Museum Group, London