On Automata, or Self-Moving Machines

...cies, the second stationary; the first mobile because, as he himself writes, the entire moves from place to place. The other is stationary because the machine in its entirety does not move, but only according to some part. Hero wrote of the as of these; and it is not long since translated the pneumatics into Latin and illustrated them with figures. Those then which the same Hero wrote concerning the , emerge now from the shadows of antiquity, illustrated and illuminated by us; having been exhorted and encouraged to do so by the same Commandino, from whom—being beloved by us as a Father—we learned the principles, the reasoning of the , and the rules of ; to whose memory and goodness we remain under an obligation in no way inferior to his many merits. The pneumatics are, for the most part, vessels—either plain, that is, seen in their own form, or covered and clothed in the image of some animal that drinks, sings, shoots an arrow, sacrifices, or does some such thing. The self-moving are for the most part temples, carts, images, or panels, such as altar icons and similar things. The pneumatics are ordinarily composed of small tubes, of partitions which the Greeks call , of valves, of , and of , which we call , which are nothing other than those plugs that fill the inflators of balls, and those others with which we open and close washbasins and the buckets of barbers, and other such parts as are required by . The self-moving then are composed of counterweights, cords, wheels, spindles, pulleys, drums, reels, and other such things; the material of the pneumatics is the same of which vessels are usually made, namely clay, glass, tin, copper, iron, and other similar materials. That of the mobile machines: wood, iron, lead, and linen, and other useful and