The Transportation of the Vatican Obelisk

BOOK ONE

...diligence that is shown at present to be used for all other similar Spires. Because I was occupied with things of greater importance, which were transporting the Spire to safety, and thinking that in such a weight, ten thousand pounds of weight, more or less, would not have caused any disorder, no care was taken to find such an exquisite measurement as is now stated, where the true way to measure any similar stone is proposed.

Now, thinking that each argano capstan/winch with good ropes and pulleys raised about twenty thousand pounds of weight, I found that forty capstans would have raised eight hundred thousand pounds of weight for me. For the remainder, I decided to place five lieue levers of very thick beams, each seventy palmi long, so that not only did I have the strength to raise all the weight, but plenty to spare, besides that one could always add instruments to my model if the first ones had not been sufficient.

Once this invention of mine was published, it seemed that almost all the skilled men doubted that one could ever coordinate all the capstans together to make a unified force to lift such a great weight. It was said that, not being able to pull equally, but one more than the other, as is seen by experience, consequently they could not unite the forces. Thus, the greater part of the weight loading onto that capstan which had pulled more than all the others would have broken it, and from this, the disruption and disorder of the whole machine could be caused.

I, nonetheless, on the contrary, although I had never seen nor practiced such strength together, nor could I be clear about it from any report, was always sure of being able to do it for this reason: I knew that four horses pulling one of those ropes that I had ordered to be made, with all their might, could not break it. Therefore, when each capstan had too much weight upon it, it could no longer be turned, nor—as I said above—could the rope break. I was clear about this from experience. Now, while these too-heavily-loaded capstans could no longer be turned, the other, slower capstans would be turned until they too had their share of the weight, in such a way that each capstan took on its portion. The first one that had been too loaded, once the others shouldered the burden, would have begun to be able to be turned, so that by themselves they would have coordinated and united all the forces together. Furthermore, I had ordered that at every three or four turns of the capstan they should stop, because with this order, by touching the ropes and finding some too tight, one had to loosen them. Because by loosening the end that comes to the capstan—as that which carries more weight than all, given that it pulls all the others—its portion of the weight then comes to remain attached to the pulley, distributed equally among all of them. And this was the order I wanted to give to those who held this end, which is commonly called the Candela Candle: that feeling it being pulled too much, they should loosen it while working. And all these orders, from long experience, were not new to me, and with them, I remedied all those dangers that could have occurred, and I was sure that no rope could ever break in any way.

Needing, therefore, to build a castle of timber and to make the square to plant the aforementioned forty capstans (the place being somewhat narrow), it was necessary to throw down some houses and level a long and wide square, according to what can be derived from the scale placed in the drawing of the site plan, where the capstans are distributed. And so that the weight would not have to make the ground sink, it was begun around the foot of the Spire to make a bed of double beams that touched one another...