Picturing Machines 1400-1700

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C 2005 Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and ScienceAll rights reserved

ISSN 15494497 (online) ISSN 15494470(print) ISSN 15494489(CD-ROM)Aestimatio 2 (2005) 58--63

Picturing Machines 1400--1700edited by Wolfang Lefvre

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. Pp. vi + 347. ISBN 0--262--12269--3. Cloth $40.00/25.95

Reviewed by

Renzo BaldassoColumbia [email protected]

Picturing Machines derives from a conference on Renaissance engi-neering drawings hosted by the Max Planck Institute for the Historyof Science in the summer of 2001. Divided into five sections, thevolumes nine contributions address specific drawings of machinesas well as the modes and means of visual representation availableto their creators. Rather than the technical subject of machines, thecommon denominator that binds the papers together is the drawings,which these authors consider not as mere illustrations of the verbaltext but as ideas separated and partially independent of it. Follow-

ing on the heels ofThe Power of Images in Early Modern Scienceanother collection of essays from a Berlin conference that WolfangLefvre helped organize and edit [2003]Picturing Machines is thelatest contribution from the movement aiming to reconsider the roleof images and visual representation within the intellectual and cul-tural dimensions of the history of science. Approaching drawings andprinted figures from a variety of perspectives ranging from the socialto the purely technical, these essays represent the effort of historiansof science to mark their own territory within the emerging field of vi-sual studies of early modern culture. In what follows I provide a briefsummary of each contribution while allowing more space to those thatI believe would be of most interest to the readers of this journal.

Beyond an enlightening introduction which provides a usefuloverview of the volume as well as of the topic, Lefvre also appends ashort forward to part 1 in which he defines machine drawings. Differ-ent from the ubiquitous depictions of technical objects and represent-ing only a limited subset of technical drawings, machine drawings arepragmatically defined as drawings traced or used by technicians in
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the pursuit of their professional life or derived from such practition-ers drawings [13]. Thus, rather than devise a definition based onvisual and intellectual properties of machine drawings, Lefvre priv-

ileges their makers social status and operative cultural space. Infact his definition reflects the conclusions of Marcus Popplows essaycomprising part 1 and entitled Why Draw Pictures of Machines?The Social Contexts of Early Modern Machine Drawings. Arguingfrom later 16th- and early 17th-century examples, Popplow identifiesfour contexts in which machine drawings were employed during theearly modern period. First, as is aptly exemplified byteatri di mac-chine, engineers used drawings of machines to present their devicesto a broader, non-expert public. Second, the 16th century also saw

the emergence of a distinction in social-standing between engineersand technicians; drawings were drawn by the former in order to pro-vide blue-prints for the latter who then built the actual machines.Third, engineers drew machinestheirs as well as their colleaguesto keep a private record to serve as a reference and inspiration forfuture projects. Fourth, through drawings engineers analyzed themachines workings from a theoretical perspective. Popplows cate-gories adequately describe the contexts and, therefore, the audiences

and purposes, in which machine drawings appeared during the Re-naissance; they create a cultural identity for machine drawings thatis unavailable for other coeval forms of visual representation of scien-tific and technical subjects, such as botanical, anatomical, or math-ematical drawings. Undoubtedly, his Linnean classificatory effortwill provide valuable points of reference for those studying specificgroups of drawings.

In addition to Reiner Lengs investigation of the pictorial lan-

guage developed by German gunmakers to communicate with theircolleagues and apprentices, part 2 includes an important essay byDavid McGee. In The Origin of Early Modern Machine Design,he presents four short case studies on the drawings of Villard deHonnecourt, Guido da Vigevano, Konrad Kyeser, and Mariano Tac-cola respectively, in order to support several general and notewor-thy methodological and historiographic conclusions. The analysis ofdrawings by the first two engineers allows McGee to conclude thatearly Renaissance machine representations are neither naive nor in-

complete. Instead, he recommends that we read and interpret thesedrawings primarily as an effective means of communication within a


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process involving two creative minds endowed with technical exper-tise. Building a machine required adjustments specific to the siteand depended on the availability of materials in the field. Because of

these contingent and unpredictable factors, drawings explicated cru-cial design principles rather than providing the equivalent of modernblueprints inclusive of measurements and specifics for all parts andmaterials. The visual language of these drawings functioned perfectlywithin the technical domain of those who built machines, a domainwithin which the coexistence of multiple viewpoints or inconsisten-cies of perspective within a drawing were clarifying and advantageousrather than confusing. However, as soon as princes and patrons be-came involved in the construction of machinesmainly when it came

to fundingthe visual representation of those machines changed, asis already evident in Kyesers proto-perspectival renditions that in-clude realistic backgrounds and human operators. Taccolas sketchestake this process a step further by dispensing with multiple view-points while also making the dimensions uniform, which helped toproduce three-dimensionally coherent images of machines set in anatural, believable space. Yet it is noteworthy that this change wasnot limited to presentation drawings: Taccola also rendered his ma-

chines in this way in his personal sketches. Most importantly, hisdrawings clarify that a realistic visual representation did not implythat machines were realistic or that their workings complied withreal physical constraints. This latter point convinces McGee that Re-naissance engineers should not be construed as conceptual buildersof the scientific revolution [84].

The essays by Pamela Long and Mary Henninger-Voss comprisepart 3 and address aspects of the relationship between drawings and

knowledge, knowledge created as well as assumed. In her Pictur-ing the Machine: Francesco di Giorgio and Leonardo da Vinci inthe 1490s, Long sheds light on how drawings of machines became ameans for investigating natural philosophical problems. The figuresin Francescos Trattato reveal his concerns with the investigation ofpower from a technical perspective, while Leonardos Madrid Codex1 uses drawings to study the subject of natural motion as it pertainedto the scientia de ponderibus. Most importantly, Long shows that inboth cases texts and images function in symbiosis. While considering

the readers perspective, Henninger-Voss study of fortification draw-ings reveals that the theoretical basis of the visual language shared


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by all of those involved with military architecture, from patrons andgenerals to architects and stone masons, was founded upon geometryand its applications in those sciences subalternated to mathematics.

Training in these disciplines provided advanced skills in visual ana-lysis and in reasoning by means of figures and diagrams.

The three papers of part 4 shift the focus to the development ofgeometric techniques used for drawing machines. Filippo Camerotainvestigates the codification of the rules for technical drawings that,by the 18th century, became known as descriptive geometry. Theprogression he describes begins with 15th-century linear perspective,which is subsequently integrated with the orthographic, shadow, and

double projections. Lefvres own article in the volume instead de-tails the introduction of the combined view, a technique first devel-oped within artistic and architectural contexts at the beginning ofthe 16th century by Albrecht Drer and Antonio da Sangallo theYounger. Finally, Jeanne Peiffer considers Drers integration of op-tical laws of perception in his technical drawings. Although this ele-ment taken from the science of optics was not retained by techniciansamong Drers immediate followers, it was incorporated in the hightradition from Daniele Barbaro onward, throughout the 17th century.

The volumes concluding section comprises Michael MahoneysDrawing Mechanics, an essay interesting for various reasons. Inprimis, while presenting Huygens notes and sketches to understandthe scientists confrontation with the clockmaker Isaac Thuret, Ma-honey offers exemplary analyses of drawings from the perspective ofthe history of science: he actually analyzes the visual evidence in de-tail, working through the drawings line by line. More importantly, inthe opening pages Mahoney poses questions and underscores issues

that should remain firmly in the mind of all scholars interested inthe interaction between art and science in the early modern period.Even though the points that he makes relate strictly to the science ofmechanics, they also expand and update the conclusions he presentedlong ago in the essay that doomed Samuel Edgertons argument for apivotal role of Renaissance linear perspective and naturalism in thescientific revolution [Mahoney 1985, 198--220]. After demonstratingthat by the later 17th century those concerned with the theoretical as-pects of mechanics abandoned visual representation as irrelevant to amathematical understanding, Mahoney rightly warns against reading


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into Renaissance machine drawings rudimentary theoretical princi-ples of the science of mechanics that were developed only in the 17thand 18th centuries. Moreover, he is sceptical about treating the draw-

ings of Renaissance engineers as genuine moments of scientific inquiry,and about their impact on the development of scientific theories.However, rather than questioning the potential import of the studyof machine drawings for the history of the scientific revolution, Ma-honeys healthy scepticism should serve as a call to understand betterthe development and impact of the visual reasoning and visual think-ing skills shared not only by those who created and read machinedrawings, but also by those who drew and reasoned through images inpursuing natural philosophical issues.1 Although the epistemological

limitations of visual representation became apparent over the courseof the 17th century, many Renaissance intellectuals truly hoped thatimages could serve as effective tools for understanding nature.

In summary, this volume offers valuable insights and providesmuch food for thought not only to those interested in the historyof machines and mechanics, but also to all scholars of early modernscience and its interaction with art in the Renaissance. In spite of therecurring editorial glitches, MIT press should be praised for offering

an important book at such an affordable price, and for ensuring thatthe volume contains excellent reproductions of all the images referredto by each contributor.

bibliography

Favaro, A. 1890--1909. ed. Galileo Galilei, Le Opere. 20 vols. Flo-rence.

Mahoney cites a passage from a letter of Ludovico Cardi da Cigoli to Galileo1

Galilei in which the painter explains Christopher Clavius refusal to believein the Moons roughness by citing the Jesuits lack of disegnio. (Suchan accusation is obviously completely unfounded.) In the painters viewwhich he expects Galileo to sharemathematicians should be capable ofreasoning from graphic, visual evidence. Moreover, given that the issue atstake concerned the properties of a celestial body, the ability to arrive at

conclusions by means of visual analysis and demonstrations was probablyexpected also of natural philosophers. For the original letter, see Favaro1890--1909, 11.167--169.
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Lefvre, W.; Renn, J.; and Schoepflin, U. 2003. edd. The Power ofImages in Early Modern Science. Berlin.

Mahoney, M. 1985. Diagrams and Dynamics: Mathematical Perspec-

tives on Edgertons Thesis. Pp. 198--220 in J. W. Shirley andF. D. Hoeniger edd. Science and the Arts in the Renaissance.London.

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