Automata Old and New

by Conrad William Cooke

Mention might here be made of the colossal figure of Amunoph III. on the plain of Thebes, and which is commonly known as the “vocal Memnon,” of which a photograph is now before you; it is the more eastern of the two Colossi, and, when the first rays of the morning sun fell on it, it emitted a sound which has been described as similar to that of the snapping of a harp string, but it has been silent since the time of Severus. It is a seated figure nearly sixty feet in height, and is in no sense an automaton, but I mention it here because it was believed to utter sentences which the ancient priests of Egypt alone, for the very best of reasons, knew how to interpret.

In more modern times we hear of the eminent Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester (who married the sister of Oliver Cromwell, and who may be regarded as the founder of the Royal Society), experimenting upon the transmission of sound; and Evelyn, in his “Diary,” writing on the 13th of July, 1654, says, “We all dined at that most obliging and universally curious Dr. Wilkins’s, at Wadham College. He had contrived a hollow statue, which gave a voice and uttered words”; and in his “Mathematicall Magick,” (a copy of which I have here) which was published in 1648, Wilkins refers to the speaking figures of the ancients.

A contemporary of Wilkins was the celebrated Edward Somerset, Marquis of Worcester, who in his “Century of Inventions” gives as his 88th device: “How to make a Brazen or Stone-head in the midst of a great Field or Garden, so artificial and natural that though a man speak never so softly, and even whispers into the eare thereof, it will presently open its mouth, and resolve the Question in French, Latine, Welsh, Irish or English, in good terms uttering it out of his mouth, and then shut it untill the next Question be asked.”—But, unhappily, he does not tell us how it may be done.

The great period for the construction of automata began at the close of the fourteenth century, and reached its climax at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. One of the earliest mechanicians who devoted his skill to automata was Johann Müller, of Königsberg, commonly known as Regiomontanus. This eminent mathematician and astronomer made of iron a fly which is said to have left his hand and, after flying to each of the guests in the room, returned to its master, alighting on his hand. Müller made also a still more wonderful machine; this was an artificial eagle which, on the authority of Peter Ramus, flew to meet the Emperor Maximilian on his entry into Nuremberg on the 7th of June, 1470. After soaring aloft in the air, Ramus informs us, the eagle met the emperor at some distance from the city, then returned and perched upon the city gate where it awaited the emperor’s approach. On his arrival the bird stretched out its wings and saluted him by bowing.

It is a remarkable fact that not one of Müller’s contemporaries, who often refer to this learned man and to his great accomplishments, makes any reference to these pieces of mechanism, and Peter Ramus was not born until forty-five years after, but they are referred to by Baptista Porta, Gassendi, Lana, and Bishop Wilkins, who, however, differ considerably in their dates. Strada, in his “De Bello Belgico,” tells us that the Emperor Charles V., after his abdication in 1556, took a most keen interest in automata of various kinds, and he employed a very skilful artist, Janellus Turrianus, of Cremona, to construct them for him. This mechanic made figures of horsemen which marched along the table, played upon flutes and drums, and entered into combat with one another, and he exhibited wooden birds which flew up to their nests (they must, I think, have been wood pigeons). This Janellus Turrianus was evidently a very wonderful man, for he made a corn-mill so small that it could be concealed in a glove, and yet could grind in a day as much corn as would supply eight men with food. I never saw this machine myself, and I cannot help thinking that either the glove must have been rather large or the appetites of the men must have been rather small. Apart, however, from the exaggeration of the genius of this man, he was undoubtedly a most skilful mechanician, for he repaired and considerably improved a most complex clock constructed by Wilhelm Zelandin for the city of Padua, in which moving figures and astronomical phenomena were represented.

The addition to clocks of automata set in motion by the train was a very favourite occupation of the horologists of the sixteenth century. Of these clocks perhaps the most celebrated was that at Strasburg, which was constructed by Conrad Dasypodius. This clock was finished in the year 1573. Apart from its interesting representations of various celestial phenomena, it is remarkable for the number of moving figures which embellish it, and which perform various functions; above the dial the four ages of man are represented by symbolical figures; one passes every quarter of an hour, marking the quarter by striking on a bell; the first quarter is struck by a child with an apple, the second by a youth with an arrow, the third by a man with his staff, and the fourth by an old man with his crutch. After these follows the figure of Death, who, after sounding the hour on a large bell, is expelled by a figure representing Christ, while two small angels are set into motion, the one striking a bell with a sceptre, while the other turns over an hour-glass at the expiration of an hour. There are, besides, various animals, and among them a cock, which flaps its wings and crows just before the clock strikes the hour.

The great clock at Lyons, the work of Lippius of Basle, is hardly less interesting. Besides exhibiting mechanical illustrations of astronomical phenomena, a complete cycle of operations representing scriptural events is performed. Before each hour strikes a cock comes forward and crows three times, after which angels appear, who by striking upon a gamut of bells ring out the air of a hymn, and this is followed by a moving group illustrating the Annunciation of the Virgin and the descent of a dove, and the cycle is completed by the striking of the hour.

In the Royal Palace of Versailles there was a very curious clock, the work of Martinot, a clockmaker of the seventeenth century. Before it struck the hour two cocks flapped their wings and crowed alternately, then two little doors opened and a figure came out of each carrying a gong which was struck by armed guards with their clubs. These figures having retired, a door in the centre opened and an equestrian figure of Louis XIV. came out. At the same time a group of clouds separated giving passage to the figure of Fame which hovered over the head of the king. An air was then chimed upon the bells, after which the figures retired; the two guards raised their clubs and the hour was struck.

In the year 1788, Agostino Ramelli published his important work “Le diverse ed artificiose Machine,” and I have reproduced some of the plates in that beautiful book, a copy of which is before me (one of which, [Fig. 17, see Frontispiece], I have chosen to adorn the menu which is on the table, for no other reason than that it appeared especially appropriate as figurative of the desire of your humble Mechanick to be for ever associated with Ye Sette of Odd Volumes).