Today’s blog post is a guest post by Assistant Librarian for Legal Research at the Law Library of Congress, Peter Roudik. Peter has previously authored the following posts for In Custodia Legis: Murder as Statecraft, Legal Approaches to Narcotics in Sixteen Countries, Killed Negotiating Peace: Assassinations of Russian Ambassadors, Law Library’s New Report Reviews National Laws Regulating Net Zero Emissions, and more.
While on a tour at the royal palace in Naples, Italy, I saw a strange machine created for Queen Maria Carolina of Austria in 1792, and now in the collection of the National Library of Naples.
It was called “rotating lectern” and looked like a medieval version of several computer monitors open in front of you. This wooden device, designed by Italian inventor Agostino Ramelli in the late 16th century, allowed a scholar to work with several open books simultaneously. A reader would sit at the table and turn the wheel, bringing up the book needed at the particular moment. This elegant royal bookwheel is one of the latest versions of this invention. The Library of Congress does not have a bookwheel in its collection, but we do have several translations of Ramelli’s original description of his “ingenious machines,” including the bookwheel. Unexpectedly, I found a much earlier version of a bookwheel in the first public library opened on our continent when I visited a friend in the city of Puebla, Mexico. This beautiful library is called Biblioteca Palafoxiana because it was established by Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza in 1646.
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Comments (2)
Very interesting and creatively designed device; thank you for sharing it!
Quite interesting: thank you!