Juanelo Turriano: An Impressive Engineer of the Renaissance

In 1530, Juanelo was around his late twenties or early thirties and still he wasn't that prominent of an engineer in Italy, at least to the upper class. Yet he was going to be. He was to carry out projects of an incredible kind.
A request was made for a clockmaker who could repair a famous astrarium in Padua. Juanelo accepted it and once examining the clock, he proposed that they build another one instead. He began to be praised for his ingenious mechanical work, becoming popular once and for all. Juanelo accompanied Charles V when the emperor abdicated the throne and went for his retirement in a monastery. In order to entertain Charles, Juanelo made little robot figures.
He would build a life size robot monk which walked and along with another most interesting invention described below in the video.

This video shows Juanleo's invention for

 raising water 'from the Tagus to the Alcazar':

 

If you don't understand Spanish you can watch it on YouTube and translate it through the captions. 

P.S. I love this video!

Check out more from Engineering and Philosophy by Elizabeth King:

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Sources:

Clockwork Prayer: A Sixteenth Century Mechanical Monk by Elizabeth King http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v1n1/nonfiction/king_e/prayer_toc.htm

Video from YouTube

Moses Sculpture with Horns: Michelangleo

Moses with Horns Chilling at the Louvre

Have you ever seen Michelangelo's Tomb of Julius II in Rome? It includes a sculpture of Moses. He is seated with a flowing beard and horns on his head. It wasn't a joke of Michelangelo's, he actually believed Moses had horns on his head and had gotten them after he had come down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. Many people believed Moses had horns back then in the renaissance, because of an error in the English translation of the Bible. The Bible in the Latin Vulgate version said "And when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord. (Source 1)" The word horned was translated from was "qaran" but later they changed printed horned as what it really meant: "shone." And really shouldn't they be 

suspicious of the translation? Someone's face cannot really be "horned," their head can be though. And because of this translation throughout renaissance art Moses is shown with horns.

The Sculpture

Sources:

1. Douay-Reims Bible + Challoner Notes;

Book of Exodus, Chapter 34: http://drbo.org/cgi-bin/d?b=drb&bk=2&ch=34&l=30&f=s#x

2. Moses and Those 'Horns' by Eloise Hart: http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/mideast/mi-elo.htm