Gianello della Torre or to Spaniards Juanelo Turriano or Giovanni Torriani, c. 1500 — 1585) was an Italo-Spanish clockmaker, engineer and mathematician. He was born in

Cremona Cremona (, also ; ; lmo, label= Cremunés, Cremùna; egl, Carmona) is a city and ''comune'' in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the ''Pianura Padana'' ( Po Valley). It is the capital of th ...

Biography

Called to Spain in 1529 by

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, french: Charles Quint, it, Carlo V, nl, Karel V, ca, Carles V, la, Carolus V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain (Crown of Castile, Castil ...

, he was appointed ''Court Clock Master'' and built the , an astronomical clock that made him famous in his time.

Philip II of Spain Philip II) in Spain, while in Portugal and his Italian kingdoms he ruled as Philip I ( pt, Filipe I). (21 May 152713 September 1598), also known as Philip the Prudent ( es, Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from ...

named him . He worked and lived in Toledo, where he built the , an engine that, driven by the river itself, lifted water from the Tagus to a height of almost 100 meters, to supply the city and its castle (

Alcázar An alcázar, from Arabic ''al-Qasr'', is a type of Islamic castle or palace in the Iberian Peninsula (also known as al-Andalus) built during Muslim rule between the 8th and 15th centuries. They functioned as homes and regional capitals for gover ...

). He, however, did not get to be properly paid for its expenses. Turriano is attributed as the creator of the "Clockwork Prayer", an automaton representing a monk manufactured in the 1560s based on a commission from

. Following the recovery of

his son His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, ...

, and in the belief that Didacus of Alcalá had in some way intervened on his behalf, King Philip II of Spain would have commissioned Juanelo Turriano, mechanic to his father, to build a clockwork model of Didacus. The model would perform a number of set actions, including the beating of the breast which accompanies the prayer. An automaton of similar age, functions, and appearance is in the collections of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Another automaton associated with Turriano is a figure of a lady playing a lute housed in the

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal do ...

, Vienna. He died at Toledo in 1585.

Bibliography

* Zanetti, Cristiano. Janello Torriani and the Spanish Empire: A Vitruvian Artisan at the Dawn of the Scientific Revolution. Brill, 2017.

References

*This article is mostly translated from the longer Spanish language article.

External links

El artificio de Juanelo
The water fetching automaton.
Juanelo Turriano Foundation

Reconstrucción del artificio de Juanelo (PDF format) The new model of the hydraulic machine known as El Artificio de Juanelo in three-dimensional computer simulation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turriano, Juanelo 1500s births 1585 deaths Scientists from Cremona Italian clockmakers Spanish clockmakers 16th-century Italian engineers 16th-century Italian inventors Italian emigrants to Spain 16th-century robots