Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
inventor, mathematician, and philosopher, chiefly remembered for his popular treatise on machines ''Theatrum Instrumentorum'' (1571–1572), which saw many reprints in different languages.
Life
Little information has survived about Besson's early life; he described himself as being from Colombières, part of Escarton de Oulx, now in Cesana Torinese, Italy. He was most likely born around 1540. In the early 1550s he is recorded as teaching mathematics in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, following which the next account of him dates from April 1557, when he is recorded in the minutes of the town council of
Lausanne
Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...
, Switzerland, as being paid for models of
pump
A pump is a device that moves fluids (liquids or gases), or sometimes Slurry, slurries, by mechanical action, typically converted from electrical energy into hydraulic or pneumatic energy.
Mechanical pumps serve in a wide range of application ...
s and
fountain
A fountain, from the Latin "fons" ( genitive "fontis"), meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect.
Fountains were o ...
s.
In 1559 he published his first treatise in
Zurich
Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
, the ''De absoluta ratione extrahendi olea et aquas e medicamentis simplicibus'' (on the complete doctrine of extracting oils and waters from simple drugs), featuring an introduction by
Conrad Gesner
Conrad Gessner (; ; 26 March 1516 – 13 December 1565) was a Old Swiss Confederacy, Swiss physician, natural history, naturalist, bibliographer, and philologist. Born into a poor family in Zürich, Switzerland, his father and teachers quickly ...
. That same year he moved to
Geneva
Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...
where in 1561 he requested permission to become a citizen of Geneva. His entry in Geneva's ''Livre de Bourgeois'' notes that citizenship was awarded as a result of his services "in teaching the art and science of mathematics"
In 1562 Besson became the
pastor
A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...
Villeneuve-de-Berg
Villeneuve-de-Berg (; ) is a commune in the Ardèche department in southern France.
Geography
The village lies in the north central part of the commune, on the right bank of the river Ibie, which flows southward through the commune.
Popula ...
, France,
Olivier de Serres
Olivier de Serres (; 1539–1619) was a French author and soil scientist whose '' Théâtre d'Agriculture'' (1600) was the accepted textbook of French agriculture in the 17th century.
Biography
Serres was born in 1539 at Villeneuve-de-Berg, A ...
having sent a request to the Company of Pastors for a minister. However, less than two years later he was forced out by a rival. By 1565 he was back in Paris, where in 1567 he published his second treatise, ''Le Cosmolabe'', which described an elaborate instrument based on the
astrolabe
An astrolabe (; ; ) is an astronomy, astronomical list of astronomical instruments, instrument dating to ancient times. It serves as a star chart and Model#Physical model, physical model of the visible celestial sphere, half-dome of the sky. It ...
which could be used for
navigation
Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...
,
surveying
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the land, terrestrial Plane (mathematics), two-dimensional or Three-dimensional space#In Euclidean geometry, three-dimensional positions of Point (geom ...
,
cartography
Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...
, and
astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...
. ''Le Cosmolabe'' also introduced a number of mechanical inventions that he hoped to describe in more detail in a future work. Besson was described as a professor of mathematics from
Orléans
Orléans (,"Orleans" (US) and King Charles IX of France made a royal visit to Orléans in 1569, Besson presented to the King a draft of his new treatise, what was to become the ''Theatrum Instrumentorum''. and returned with him to
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
as "master of the King's Engines". Charles gave Besson exclusive rights to his designs in that same year. While employed by the court, Besson also created an ingenious screw-cutting lathe that was semi-automatic, in that the operator only needed to pull and release a cord.
Besson's ''Theatrum Instrumentorum'' (Theater of Machines), was completed and published in 1571 or 1572. It was a unique work; previously, works on engineering and technology such as Valturio's ''De re militari'' (1472), Biringuccio's ''Pirotechnia'' (1540) and
Agricola
Agricola, the Latin word for farmer, may also refer to:
People Cognomen or given name
:''In chronological order''
* Gnaeus Julius Agricola (40–93), Roman governor of Britannia (AD 77–85)
* Sextus Calpurnius Agricola, Roman governor of the m ...
's '' De re metallica'' (1556), had had only limited descriptions of new inventions or recounted inventions of the past without much detail. In contrast, Besson's work was a collection of his own new inventions with detailed illustrations of each engraved by Jacques Androuet du Cerceau to his specifications. Some of his designs suggested important improvements to
lathe
A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, threading and turning, with tools that are applied to the w ...
s and the waterwheel. The
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
captions to the highly detailed drawings were sparse, however, which would seem to indicate that the text was probably produced in a hurry. Even the title page does not give the name of the printer or the date of publication. The rush in publishing the book may have been due to the crackdown on French
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
s that culminated in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572.
Although Besson was favoured by King Charles IX, he feared the increasing anti-Protestant sentiment in France, and emigrated to England shortly after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572, where he died in 1573.
The ''Theatrum Instrumentorum'' had proved so popular that a second edition appeared in 1578, with more detailed descriptions of the instruments and machines by François Béroalde de Verville. The copper plates from the original edition were reused, except for four which were replaced by new engravings produced by René Boyvin.
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...