Miracles and Machines
A Sixteenth-Century Automaton and Its Legend
by Elizabeth King; W. David Todd
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Pub Date Aug 15 2023 | Archive Date Aug 14 2023
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Description
This volume tells the singular story of an uncanny, rare object at the cusp of art and science: a 450-year-old automaton known as “the monk.” The walking, gesticulating figure of a friar, in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, is among the earliest extant ancestors of the self-propelled robot. According to legend connected to the court of Philip II of Spain, the monk represents a portrait of Diego de Alcalá, a humble Franciscan lay brother whose holy corpse was said to be agent to the miraculous cure of Spain’s crown prince as he lay dying in 1562.
In tracking the origins of the monk and its legend, the authors visited archives, libraries, and museums across the United States and Europe, probing the paradox of a mechanical object performing an apparently spiritual act. They identified seven kindred automata from the same period, which, they argue, form a paradigmatic class of walking “prime movers,” unprecedented in their combination of visual and functional realism. While most of the literature on automata focuses on the Enlightenment, this enthralling narrative journeys back to the late Renaissance, when clockwork machinery was entirely new, foretelling the evolution of artificial life to come.
Available Editions
EDITION | Other Format |
ISBN | 9781606068397 |
PRICE | $45.00 (USD) |
PAGES | 256 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
5/5
There's a rare automaton in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. It's a monk that moves and prays fervently, an exquisite piece of art and clockwork with an unknown provenance. Could it have been made in Spain by the famous engineer Juanelo Turriano? Or did it come from somewhere else?
This was quite an interesting read, I picked it up out of curiosity and was really surprised by both the quality and the monk itself! An extremely well researched book, with a thorough description and exploration of all the mechanics behind this astonishing automata plus the history behind these creations. Not one stone was left unturned by the researchers, the amount of work put into this was astounding. The pictures were also lovely and the whole work was nicely formatted. My favorite part about reading this was how clearly it was a labor of love, of curiosity, and cooperation between different people and disciplines. Cannot recommend this enough.