Juanelo Turriano, Charles V’s Clockmaker: The Man and His Legend by José A. García-Diego

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 287 and artisan practice. He has also tried to trace Zonca’s life. But little information is available. We have records of his death at age thirtyfour and the deaths of his immediate family; we know where he lived, in the Torrazzo, a medieval stronghold that had been renovated; and he appears as godfather to the children of friends but presumably did not himself marry. From his work as architect, only his letter to the council and the map survive—no building in Padua or elsewhere is known to have been designed by him. Poni also sought notes that would disclose the reactions of past owners of Zonca’s book. (Robert Hooke probably owned a copy; his diary mentions buying “an Italian of machines,” and Zonca is the likeliest candidate.) Unluckily, the only picture that seems to have aroused comment—and then ofcontempt— was a weird perpetual motion device taken from a manuscript of Francesco di Giorgio. It is indeed disappointing to find it in such a book—Zonca ought to have seen through it. Perhaps that just proves that Zonca failed to benefit from the presence of Galileo. At all events, the Cambridge University Library’s copy of a later edition of Zonca contains a penciled note even ruder than any found by Poni: “e questa e una coglioneria. . . .” Alex Keller Dr. Keller teaches the history of science and technology at the University of Leices­ ter. Recently he was a Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, researching ma­ chines and mechanics in the culture of the Renaissance. Juanelo Turriano, Charles V’j Clockmaker: The Man and His Legend. By José A. Garcia-Diego. Translated by Charles David Ley. Madrid and Canton, Mass.: Editorial Castalia and Science History Publications (Watson Publishing International), 1986. Pp. xix+ 165; illustrations, notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $35.00 (cloth); $20.00 (paper). Available from Science History Pubs., P.O. Box 493, Canton, Mas­ sachusetts 02021. A study of the work ofJuanelo Turriano, the foremost technologist of the 16th century—“facile princeps” as Charles V called him in 1554—about whom very little is known, cannot fail to be of interest to readers of this journal. It has to be admitted, however, that even after José Garcia-Diego has combed the literature and added to it by unearthing numbers of documents in the archives of Spain and Italy, there are still more lacunae than hard facts in this account of Turriano ’s career as horologist. Turriano’s fame during his lifetime and after was, of course, based also on his achievements in constructing the two celebrated water-lifting devices in Toledo, completed in 1569 and 1581 respectively. But this period of activity covering the last 288 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE twenty years of his life (1565-85) is given, reasonably enough, only brief mention, apart from references to his further work on clocks and on problems of calendrical reform, and to the book he was then composing on his two masterworks, the astronomical clocks—the Mil­ anese Planetarium, completed in 1550, and El Cristalino of ca. 1565. Turriano was born in Cremona about 1500. Although apparently from a poor family and without formal education, he found that his intellectual capacity attracted attention; maybe on this account he was helped to an apprenticeship as clockmaker in Cremona. At all events, he was referred to as “Master” in 1529 on his receipt of payment for work on the clock of the city cathedral. It is likely that he was then already contemplating the construction of an astronomical clock that would surpass de Dondi’s astrarium of ca.1360, but whether he even saw its remains, let alone repaired it, is uncertain. At some point Turriano moved to Milan, set up a workshop, and evidently acquired a considerable reputation as an expert craftsman. This last was even­ tually to win him the commission to construct an astronomical clock for presentation to the emperor Charles V. It seems to have been completed by 1550, for in that year the clock was taken by Turriano to the emperor in person in either Augsburg or Innsbruck. Somewhat later he accepted a place at court and in...