Agostino Ramelli’s "Theatre of Diverse and Artificial Machines" (1588)
“The Kindle of the 16th century”.
Agostino Ramelli’s 1588 Le diverse et artificiose machine (Diverse and artificial machines) features these devices (and about two hundred others) in an intricately illustrated volume. …
… Most prescient, perhaps, was his book wheel, which Megan Garber has called “the Kindle of the 16th century”. Borrowing the epicyclic gearing mechanism from astronomical clocks, Ramelli envisioned the machine to be of use to “anyone who takes pleasure in study, especially those who are indisposed and tormented by gout.” More impressive than its workings was the circular form — which some read as an anticipation of how printed and digital texts came to circulate globally — and its system of shelves, which work almost like web-browser tabs. Curiously, the revolving reader might be indebted to Chinese innovation, where similar machines appear in Buddhist temples during the sixth century. Joseph Needham, for example, believes that a description of rotating Ming “kiosques” found its way to Europe via Shah Rukh, son of Timur. Today, Ramelli’s device still retains fans: Anthony Grafton, Professor of History at Princeton University, supposedly has one in his office, and students at Rochester Institute of Technology built a historically-accurate replica in 2019 based on Ramelli’s drawings…
~ via The Public Domain Review (See more machines there)