RAMELLI, Agostino. Le diverse et artificiose machine … Nelle qualsi si contengono varii et industriosi Movimenti, degni digrandissima Speculatione, per cavarne beneficio infinito in ogni sorte d’operatione. Composte in lingua italiana et francese.

RAMELLI, Agostino. Le diverse et artificiose machine … Nelle qualsi si contengono varii et industriosi Movimenti, degni digrandissima Speculatione, per cavarne beneficio infinito in ogni sorte d’operatione. Composte in lingua italiana et francese.The Earliest Depiction of a Bookwheel RAMELLI, Agostino. Le diverse et artificiose machine Nelle qualsi si contengono varii et industriosi Movimenti, degni digrandissima Speculatione, per cavarne beneficio infinito in ogni sorte doperatione. Composte in lingua italiana et francese. Paris: In casa delautore. 1588. Folio. Twentieth century vellum over boards, modern gilt lettering to spine, edges stained red; ff. [16], 338, engraved architectural title

The Earliest Depiction of a Bookwheel

RAMELLI, Agostino. Le diverse et artificiose machine … Nelle qualsi si contengono varii et industriosi Movimenti, degni digrandissima Speculatione, per cavarne beneficio infinito in ogni sorte d’operatione. Composte in lingua italiana et francese. Paris: ‘In casa del’autore’. 1588.

Folio. Twentieth-century vellum over boards, modern gilt lettering to spine, edges stained red; ff. [16], 338, engraved architectural title page by Léonard Gaultier, engraved portrait of Ramelli by Gaultier to title-page verso, 195 engraved plates numbered I–CXCV (20 of which double-page), text within typographic frames, woodcut initials and tailpieces; recased, extremities lightly rubbed, small marks to boards, small inkstains to lower corner of textblock; 85-mm loss to title with with old paper repair, affecting 4 words of text (supplied in ink facsimile), occasional marginal staining and light offsetting, occasional tiny wormhole to inner margin (touching only double-page plates), but generally a very good, bright copy; ink annotations in a contemporary hand to final verso (see below).

First edition, printed for the author, of one of the most celebrated illustrated books of the sixteenth century, and ‘one of the most elegantly produced of all technological treatises’ (Norman), written in Italian and French and featuring the earliest known depiction of a bookwheel, our copy including a contemporary, seemingly unpublished French vernacular love poem in manuscript.

Born near the Swiss-Italian border, Agostino Ramelli (1531–c. 1610) trained in military architecture before joining the army of the renowned condottiero and Spanish general Gian Giacomo Medici (1498–1555). After Medici’s death, he entered the employ of the Duke of Savoy and by 1565 had relocated to France, where he entered the service of the future Henry III. In 1572, during the siege of La Rochelle, Ramelli was gravely wounded and taken prisoner by the Huguenots. Upon his release, he remained in the French king’s service and, in 1587, was entrusted by Catherine de’ Medici with overseeing the fortification of Paris.

Le diverse et artificiose machine, Ramelli’s magnum opus, is renowned for its blend of technical innovation and artistic refinement. The treatise explores the vast potential of mechanical invention and had a profound impact on the development of mechanical and military engineering in early modern Europe, including the work of Grollier de Servière and Jacob Leupold. The work was developed over several years in collaboration with fellow military engineer Ambroise Bachot, and was likely printed in a press installed in Ramelli’s own Paris residence.

Dedicated to Henry III, the volume opens with Léonard Gaultier’s striking portrait of the author: richly attired, seated at a table, helmet in one hand and compass in the other, measuring the plan of a fortress. The book presents an extraordinary array of mechanical inventions: ‘One hundred and ten water-lifting machines, twenty-one grain mills, four alternative mill designs, ten cranes, seven transport mechanisms for heavy loads, two earth-lifting devices, two cisterns, four fountains, fifteen military bridges, fourteen screw jacks and other wall-demolishing tools, one artillery mechanism, and more’ (DBI, trans.). Many of these are supported by enlarged schematics showing the intricate gear systems that animate them, testament to Ramelli’s meticulous concern for mechanical precision.

Among the 195 plates is the earliest known European depiction of a bookwheel (plate CLXXXVIII), a rotating reading desk modelled after a water wheel, designed to allow simultaneous consultation of multiple large volumes. It is often cited as one of the earliest ‘information retrieval’ machines, and was especially recommended by Ramelli for readers ‘troubled by gout or otherwise incapacitated’, an early nod to accessibility in design. Also featured is an automaton inspired by Hero of Alexandria, comprising a group of birds perched on the branches of a large vase which move and sing when activated by air pressure (plate CLXXXVII).

Plates CXLVIII and CXLIX appear as a single engraving; three others are signed with the cipher ‘JG’, possibly referring to Jean de Gourmont. A German translation, titled Schatzkammer, Mechanischer Künste, appeared in Leipzig in 1620.

Provenance: An early owner of this copy has inscribed an apparently unpublished love poem on the verso of the final leaf, beginning: ‘La fontaine qui long voudra croissir en quelque lieu que long…’.

BM STC French, p. 372; USTC 851947/56614/130057; Adams R-52; Brunet, IV, col. 1095 (‘rare et recherché’); Dibner, Heralds 173 (‘The engravings are among the best in technological illustration’); Graesse VI.1, p. 20; Norman 1777 (‘The plates in Ramelli’s treatise are artistically as well as technologically superb, the bilingual text beautifully printed’); Wellcome I 5323.

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