Johann Beckmann - A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

Figures or puppets, which appear to move of themselves, were employed formerly to work miracles; but they could hardly be used for that purpose at present in any catholic country of Europe, though they still serve to amuse the vulgar. Among these are the marionettes 330 330 Frisch derives this word from morio , a fool or buffoon. , as they are called, the different parts of which are put in motion imperceptibly by a thread. Of a still more ingenious construction are those which are moved by the turning of a cylinder, as is the case in the machines with which some of the old miners in Germany earn a livelihood; but the most ingenious of all are those which are kept in continual movement for a certain time, by the help of wheels with a weight or spring. The latter are called automata ; and, when they represent human figures, androides . Under the former general name are comprehended our watches, the most useful of all, and also jacks 331 331 This piece of kitchen furniture was known in the middle of the sixteenth century. Montagne saw one at Brixen, in Tyrol, in the year 1580, and wrote a description of it in his Journal, as a new invention. He says it consisted entirely of wheels; that it was kept in motion by a heavy piece of iron, as clocks are by a weight, and that when wound up in the like manner, it turned the meat for a whole hour. He had before seen, in some other place, another driven by smoke. – Reise, i. pp. 155, 249. The latter kind seem to be somewhat older. Scappi, cook to pope Pius V., gave a figure of one in his book Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, printed at Venice 1570, which is exceedingly scarce. I lately saw a copy, which, instead of eighteen, had twenty-four engravings. It was printed twice afterwards at the same place, viz. in 1571 and 1605, in quarto. The third edition says, “con due aggiunte, cio é il Trinciante et il Maestro di casa.” Bayle seems to confound this book with that of Platina De Honesta Voluptate, or to think that the latter was the real author of it. This however cannot be, as there were more than a hundred years between the periods when Scappi and Platina lived. Platina died in 1481, and not in 1581, as we read in Bayle. , with many others. The latter appellation is given to small puppets, which, when their inner works have been wound up, run upon the table or pavement, and as they advance move their head, eyes, and hands. They have been exhibited sometimes under the name of courrante Margarethe , which gave rise perhaps to the word marionette .

The proper marionettes are very old. They were common among the Greeks, and from them they were brought to the Romans. They were known by the name of neurospasta , and were much used at their shows. Aristotle speaks of some which moved their head, eyes, hands and limbs in a very natural manner 332 332 De Mundo. cap. vi. . They are mentioned with equal precision by Galen, Xenophon, Antoninus, Horace, Gellius, and others. To these belong the phalli , which were carried round during the festivals of Osiris and Bacchus, and of which one member only, that properly meant by the name, and which was almost as large as the whole body, moved upon certain threads being pulled 333 333 Herodot. ii. 48. p. 127. – Lucian. de Syria Dea, 16, ed. Bipont. ix. p. 99. . Count Caylus has given an engraving of the body of a small puppet, made of ivory or bone; but he requires too much when he desires us to consider that fragment, merely on his word, as a piece of Greek or Roman antiquity. He at least ought to have informed us where it was found, and by what means he procured it. In regard to such articles, it is as easy to deceive as to be led into an error; and objects of bone are certainly of no great duration 334 334 Recueil des Antiquit. iv. p. 259. .

The question concerning the antiquity of automata, properly so called, which are moved by wheels, weights and springs, I shall leave to those who have read the works of the ancient mathematicians, and who may be desirous of writing on the history of mechanics. As far as I know, the ancients were not acquainted with the art of making them, unless some propositions of Ctesibius, mentioned by Vitruvius, allude to that subject. When clocks were brought to perfection, some artists added to them figures, which at the time of striking performed various movements; and as they succeeded in these, some attempted to make, detached from clocks, single figures, which either moved certain limbs, or advanced forward and ran. In the middle of the sixteenth century, when Hans Bullmann 335 335 Doppelmayer, p. 285. , a padlock-maker at Nuremberg, constructed figures of men and women which moved backwards and forwards by clock-work, beat a drum, and played on the lute according to musical time, they excited universal astonishment as a new invention. It was about the same period that watches came into use. The accounts however which speak of much older automata deserve to be examined with more attention.

The most ancient of all are undoubtedly the tripods constructed by Vulcan 336 336 Iliad, xviii. 373. It deserves to be remarked, that there were also such τρίποδες αὐτόματοι at the banquet of Iarchas. See Philostrat. Opera, ed. Olearii, pp. 117, 240. , which being furnished with wheels, advanced forwards to be used, and again returned to their places. But what was impossible to the gods of Homer? An unbeliever might conjecture that these tripods, which are mentioned also by Aristotle 337 337 Polit. i. 3. , and which perhaps were only a kind of small tables or dumb-waiters, had wheels so contrived that they could be put in motion and driven to a distance on the smallest impulse, like the fire-pans in our country beer-houses, at which the boors light their pipes.

That Dædalus made statues which could not only walk, but which it was necessary to tie, in order that they might not move, is related by Plato 338 338 In his Menon, p. 426. – Euthyphron, pp. 8, 11. , Aristotle, and others. The latter speaks of a wooden Venus, and remarks that the secret of its motion consisted in quicksilver having been poured into it. What the author here means I cannot comprehend; but I do not imagine that this Venus threw itself topsy-turvy backwards, like the Chinese puppets. However this may be, it is astonishing that the Chinese should have fallen upon the invention of giving motion to puppets by means of quicksilver, and in so ingenious a manner, that Muschenbroek 339 339 Introd. in Philos. Nat. i. p. 143. thought it worth his while to describe their whole construction, and to illustrate it by figures. But before this method was known in Europe, Kircher had an idea of putting a small waggon in motion by adding to it a pipe filled with quicksilver, and heating it with a candle placed below it 340 340 Physiologia Kircheriana, fol. p. 69. . The account of Aristotle is more mysterious, for he does not inform us how the quicksilver acted.

Callistratus, another writer, who was the tutor of Demosthenes, gives us to understand that the statues of Dædalus were made to move by the mechanical powers 341 341 In Philostrati Opera, ed. Olearii, p. 899. . But what has been asserted by Palæphatus, and by Gedoyn 342 342 In Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr. xiii. p. 274. , Banier, Goguet, and others among the moderns, is most probable. The first statues of the Greeks were imitations of those of the Egyptians, for the most part clumsy figures, with their eyes shut, their arms hanging down close to the body on each side, and their feet joined together. Those made by Dædalus had their eyes open, as well as their feet and hands free; and the artist gave them such a posture, that they seemed either reclining, or appeared as if ready to walk or to run. As Anacreon 343 343 Ode xxvii. , struck with wonder, exclaimed when he saw a waxen image of his favourite object, “Begone, wax, thou wilt soon speak!” the astonished Greeks in like manner cried out, when they beheld the statues of Dædalus, “They will soon walk.” The next generation affirmed that they really walked; and their posterity, adding still to what was told them, asserted that they would have run had they not been bound.