Machine book
As machines Books (lat. Theatrum machinarum ) in Europe from mid-be 16th century until the early 18th century printed books referred to by means of large-format pictures in the form of woodcuts or detailed engravings represent and partially relatively little text technical devices and inventions . The elaborate design is an indication that these are initially printed works that were purchased by a wealthy group of buyers for the purpose of entertainment and diversion. In the early phase of the literary genre, it was not about publishing instructions for replicating the devices. From the seventeenth century onwards, the works of Leonhard Christoph Sturm and Jacob Leupold contain detailed technical drawings that enable replicas. In this respect, the late machine books are forerunners of the literature on mechanical engineering . The forerunners of the machine books were the technical manuscripts of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance by Konrad Kyeser , Taccola and Leonardo da Vinci .
In the early works of the genre, functioning machines are described as well as newly conceived and utopian devices, the feasibility of which could in part be doubted - for example perpetua mobilia . Especially in the Baroque era , as the understanding of science changed, feasibility came to the fore and the machine book developed from a technical book to a technical textbook.
The authors were technicians, architects and interested laypeople.
Around 25 works are now considered to be very valuable and rare. The library of the Deutsches Museum has probably the most comprehensive collection of this form of early technical literature in the world.
Examples:
- Agostino Ramelli : Le Diverse Et Artificiose Machine… , 1588. Digitized of the German edition of 1620 of the ThULB Jena
- Jacques Besson : Theatrum instrumentorum et machinarum ; 1571/2. Digitized version of the 1582 edition of the SLUB Dresden
- Jean Errard : Le premier livre des instruments mathématiques méchaniques , 1584. Digitized from the library of the Deutsches Museum
- Vittorio Zonca : Novo teatro di machine et edificii, 1607. Digitalisat the HAB Wolfenbüttel
- Salomon de Caus : From violent movements , 1615. Digitized
- Jacobus Strada : Artistic outline of all kinds of water, wind, horse and hand mills , 1617. Digital copy of the SLUB Dresden
- Fausto Veranzio : Machinae novae Fausti Verantii Siceni , 1615. Digitized version of the Bavarian State Library
- Giovanni Branca : Le machine , 1629. Digital copy from the library of the Deutsches Museum
- Georg Andreas Böckler : Theatrum machinarum novum , 1673. Digitized by HAB Wolfenbüttel
- Leonhard Christoph Sturm : Complete mills architecture , 1718. Digital copy of the Bavarian State Library
- Jacob Leupold : Theatrum Machinarum Generale, 1724. Digitized by HAB Wolfenbüttel
literature
- Tilmann Spreckelsen: The time of machine dreams. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . April 6, 2008, No. 14, p. 70.
- Helmut Hilz: Theatrum Machinarum. The technical diary of the early modern era. Exhibition catalog for the special exhibition in the Deutsches Museum. from 13.03. until May 25, 2008. Munich 2008.
- Marcus Popplow: Protection of Invention and Machine Books: Stages of the Institutionalization of Technical Change in the Early Modern Era . In: Technikgeschichte, Vol. 63 (1996), H. 1, pp. 21-46.