The Huge Entity: Agostino Ramelli's Rotary Reader

Agostino Ramelli's Rotary Reader

Tuesday, December 05, 2006 → by Danieru

I could do with one of these at the moment.

From the Proceedings of The Athanasius Kircher Society:

In 1588, the Italian Engineer Agostino Ramelli described a novel invention to facilitate the reading of multiple books at once:

A beautiful and ingenious machine, which is very useful and convenient to every person who takes pleasure in study, especially those who are suffering from indisposition or are subject to gout: for with this sort of machine a man can see and read a great quantity of books, without moving his place: besides, it has this fine convenience, which is, of occupying a little space in the place where it is set, as any person of understanding can appreciate from the drawing.

The precurser, no doubt, to internet surfing. Gout beget Carpal Tunnel Syndrome beget Muscle Atrophy beget Internet Addiction Disorder. Will mankind stop at nothing in the pursuit of pure information?!?

Long live the book...

Categories: Books, Weird, Literature, History, Images, Internet, Brain, Technology, Nonsense