Museo Galileo
italiano
Virtual Museum
Eufrosino della Volpaia
Late 15th C.-16th C.

A clockmaker and inventor and maker of scientific instruments, Eufrosino, like his brothers Benvenuto (1486-1532) and Camillo (1484-1560), continued the business of his father Lorenzo (1446-1512). His first signed clock, carrying the date 1516, is now in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. In 1520, he made the nocturnal exhibited at the Museo Galileo of Florence (inv. 3264). In 1525, he produced the astrolabe now at the British Museum in London. During a stay in Venice in 1530, he devised an instrument to measure distances and heights. The device, documented in the manuscript notebook of his brother Benvenuto, is preserved in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice. Eufrosino was also an architect: in 1534, he supervised the construction of the Fortezza da Basso in Florence designed by Antonio da Sangallo (1483-1546). Lastly, Eufrosino was an expert cartographer. In 1542, he made a terrestrial globe, preserved at the Hispanic Society of America in New York. In 1547, he prepared a Map of the Roman countryside at the time of Paul III. He died in France at an unspecified date, as we know from his brother Benvenuto's undated Taccuino [notebook].