Vittorio Zonca

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Zonca, Novo teatro di machine et edificii 1607
Field mill by Pompeo Targone in the Book of Zonca from 1607

Vittorio Zonca (* 1568 in Padua ; † 1602 there ) was an Italian architect and engineer. He is the author of an influential early modern machine book.

life and work

Little is known about him. He is known for a machine book published in 1607. The templates for the illustrations probably come from a manuscript by the architect, sculptor and painter Francesco di Giorgio Martini (1439–1501).

A wide variety of work machines are shown, for example lifting machines, mills, presses, pumps, locks, grinding and tampering works for gunpowder production including a mobile mill from Pompeo Targone, a non-functional roast turner driven by waste heat, a water-powered silk twisting machine from Lucca and the first presentation of a belt drive. There are no machines for entertainment purposes, and hardly any utopian inventions as in other contemporary works. It was valued by technology historians for its realism. At the end there is a perpetual motion machine in the form of a suction lifter by Giovanni Battista della Porta . The machines are systematically illustrated by copper engravings.

Other machine books of the time were from Heinrich Zeising (1607), Jacques Besson (1569), Agostino Ramelli (1588), Fausto Veranzio (1615) and Giovanni Branca (1629).

In 1627 the Jesuit missionary in China Johannes Schreck and Wang Zheng published a Chinese edition based on the work of Zonca and that of Ramelli and Besson under the title Collected Drawings and Explanations of the Wonderful Machines of the Far West (Yanxi Qiqi Tushuo Luzui).

Fonts (selection)

  • Novo Teatro di Machine et Edificii, Padua: Pietro Bertelli 1607. New editions 1621, 1624, 1656, reprint of the first edition Milan: il Polifilio 1985
  • R. Glynn Faithful (Ed.): Zonca on the printing press. 1951

literature

  • Theodor Beck : Contributions to the history of mechanical engineering. Springer, 2nd edition 1900
  • Alexander Gustav Keller: A Theater of Machines. New York 1965

Web links

References and comments

  1. ^ Date of death according to Theodor Beck. Sometimes 1603 is also given.