Renaissance Fun: The machines behind the scenes

Renaissance Fun is about the technology of Renaissance entertainments in stage machinery and theatrical special effects; in gardens and fountains; and in the automata and self-playing musical instruments that were installed in garden grottoes. How did the machines behind these shows work? How exactly were chariots filled with singers let down onto the stage? How were flaming dragons made to fly across the sky? How were seas created on stage? How did mechanical birds imitate real birdsong? What was ‘artificial music’, three centuries before Edison and the phonograph? How could pipe organs be driven and made to play themselves by waterpower alone? And who were the architects, engineers, and craftsmen who created these wonders? All these questions are answered. At the end of the book we visit the lost ‘garden of marvels’ at Pratolino with its many grottoes, automata and water jokes; and we attend the performance of Mercury and Mars in Parma in 1628, with its spectacular stage effects and its music by Claudio Monteverdi – one of the places where opera was born. Renaissance Fun is offered as an entertainment in itself. But behind the show is a more serious scholarly argument, centred on the enormous influence of two ancient writers on these subjects, Vitruvius and Hero. Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture were widely studied by Renaissance theatre designers. Hero of Alexandria wrote the Pneumatics, a collection of designs for surprising and entertaining devices that were the models for sixteenth and seventeenth century automata. A second book by Hero On Automata-Making – much less well known, then and now – describes two miniature theatres that presented plays without human intervention. One of these, it is argued, provided the model for the type of proscenium theatre introduced from the mid-sixteenth century, the generic design which is still built today. As the influence of Vitruvius waned, the influence of Hero grew

Renaissance Fun

Renaissance Fun is about the technology of Renaissance entertainments in stage machinery and theatrical special effects; in gardens and fountains; and in the automata and self-playing musical instruments that were installed in garden grottoes. How did the machines behind these shows work? How exactly were chariots filled with singers let down onto the stage? How were flaming dragons made to fly across the sky? How were seas created on stage? How did mechanical birds imitate real birdsong? What was ‘artificial music’, three centuries before Edison and the phonograph? How could pipe organs be driven and made to play themselves by waterpower alone? And who were the architects, engineers, and craftsmen who created these wonders? All these questions are answered. At the end of the book we visit the lost ‘garden of marvels’ at Pratolino with its many grottoes, automata and water jokes; and we attend the performance of Mercury and Mars in Parma in 1628, with its spectacular stage effects and its music by Claudio Monteverdi – one of the places where opera was born. Renaissance Fun is offered as an entertainment in itself. But behind the show is a more serious scholarly argument, centred on the enormous influence of two ancient writers on these subjects, Vitruvius and Hero. Vitruvius’s Ten Books on Architecture were widely studied by Renaissance theatre designers. Hero of Alexandria wrote the Pneumatics, a collection of designs for surprising and entertaining devices that were the models for sixteenth and seventeenth century automata. A second book by Hero On Automata-Making – much less well known, then and now – describes two miniature theatres that presented plays without human intervention. One of these, it is argued, provided the model for the type of proscenium theatre introduced from the mid-sixteenth century, the generic design which is still built today. As the influence of Vitruvius waned, the influence of Hero grew

L’acqua: risorsa e minaccia. La gestione delle risorse idriche e delle inondazioni in Europa (XIV-XIX secolo)

[Italiano]: Ogni civiltà ha sviluppato saperi e tecniche per gestire e sfruttare l’acqua, elemento essenziale per la vita umana, ma anche per difendersi dalle minacce che possono derivare dalla convivenza con essa. In età preindustriale, la necessità di gestire un bene così prezioso ha condotto allo sviluppo di tecnologie, alla costruzione d’infrastrutture, alla creazione di magistrature apposite, ma ha anche alimentato conflitti tra soggetti che pretendevano un accesso privilegiato o esclusivo alle risorse idriche. Inoltre, i rischi derivanti dalla prossimità di corsi d’acqua o di bacini lacustri hanno spesso indotto le società a sviluppare tecniche e pratiche di prevenzione. Questo spettro di problemi è al centro dei saggi raccolti in questo volume, che studiano varie città medie e grandi dell’Europa centro-occidentale – dalla Valle del Reno alla Penisola iberica, da Parigi a Palermo – tra il XIV e il XIX secolo./[English]:Every civilization has developed different forms of knowledge and techniques to manage and exploit water, an essential element for human life, but also to defend itself from the threats that can derive from it. In preindustrial times, the need to manage such a precious commodity led to the development of different technologies, the construction of infrastructures, the creation of special judiciaries, but it also fuelled conflicts between subjects who claimed privileged or exclusive access to water resources. In addition, the risks posed by the proximity of waterways or lake basins often led societies to develop prevention techniques and practices. This range of issues is at the heart of the essays collected in this volume, which examine various medium and large cities located in Central Western Europe - from the Rhine Valley to the Iberian Peninsula, from Paris to Palermo - between the fourteenth and the nineteenth centuries

The Buccaneer (1956)

The Buccaneer (1956), a yearbook published by the students of East Tennessee State University, known then as East Tennessee State College.https://dc.etsu.edu/yearbooks/1038/thumbnail.jp

Business Education Secondary Schools, 1950

This course of study has been produced by pooling the best thinking of business education teachers throughout the state. The various production committees are to be congratulated on their successful efforts in organizing ideas into this relatively complete and practical publications. As with other curriculum materials produced by the Iowa Department of Public Instruction, the real test of this course of study will be found in what happens in classrooms through its use. Its greatest value will be to those teachers who use it, not as the curriculum, but as a source of ideas for developing the local curriculum. The complete range and choice of experiences for any school cannot be delineated in any course of study; rather, they are developed by capitalizing the written course of study as a guide for planning and action