Giovanni Fontana, also known as Johannes de Fontana (ca. 1395 – ca. 1455) was a fifteenth-century Italian physician and engineer. He was born in Venice in the 1390s and attended the

University of Padua The University of Padua ( it, Università degli Studi di Padova, UNIPD) is an Italian university located in the city of Padua, region of Veneto, northern Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 by a group of students and teachers from ...

, where he received his degree in arts in 1418 and his degree in medicine in 1421. University records list him as "Master John, son of Michael de la Fontana". His most famous promoter at the University was the scholastic Paul of Venice. He tells us that the Doge of Venice sent him to Brescia to deliver a message to the condottiere Francesco Carmagnola. He was also employed as the municipal physician by the city of

Udine Udine ( , ; fur, Udin; la, Utinum) is a city and ''comune'' in north-eastern Italy, in the middle of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic Sea and the Alps (''Alpi Carniche''). Its population was 100,514 in 2012, 176,000 with t ...

Works

Fontana composed treatises on a diverse array of topics, including measurement of heights or depths by falling stones. We have early works of his on water-clocks (with wheels), sand-clocks and measurement. Fontana studied trigonometric measurements, mentioned in ''De trigono balistario'', and through his own designed instrument, also explained in a larger treatise, however, apparently lost. He wrote a treatise on perspective, and showed it to the painter Jacopo Bellini. Grafton notes "Modern scholars often note that early engineers did not supply formal working drawings of their devices, but represented them in real time, functioning, in a way that did not give away their secrets but could appeal to patrons. Fontana, however, makes a superb exception to this rule. ... He drew not only male and female devils inspiring terror in real time by their fearsome appendages, but also the underlying mechanisms, which he laid out with the abstracting brilliance of a fifteenth-century Giacometti or Max Ernst. ... Fontana insisted that he was no magus. When witnesses at Padua exclaimed that a torpedo he had designed must run by diabolic power, he refuted them with contempt: the device was purely mechanical, as befitted a maker who was also a master of both medieval Archimedean statics and optics and of Renaissance engineering craft."

Bellicorum instrumentorum liber

Fontana composed one of the earliest Renaissance technological treatises, ''Bellicorum instrumentorum liber''. His machine book contains siege engines and fantastic inventions such as a

magic lantern The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a si ...

and a rocket-propelled bird, fish, and rabbit. Fontana also built a 4-wheeled "bike" with rope connected by gears. It is not technically a bike, but 400 years after 1418, Baron Von Drais built a two-wheeled bike that has a cord connected to the back wheel, so when you pull it you come to a halt. Sparavigna 2013 notes, "He illustrates the designs of musical instruments such as mechanical organs (Puerilia) and masks, keys and locks, warships, double mirrors, stoves and surgical instruments. The code contains a part dedicated to hydraulic projects, public fountains, systems of water distribution, experiments with siphons, and also alembics and alchemical vessels for two or more liquids. According to 0,6 this manuscript shows that Fontana aimed to investigate a series of devices from ancient books of mathematicians and naturalists such as

Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (;; ) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor from the ancient city of Syracuse in Sicily. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientis ...

Heron The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychu ...

Philo Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Philo's de ...

, and even

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom ...

and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

, and the Arab writers, mainly from Al-Kindi, to his contemporary artists and craftsmen."

Secretum de thesauro experimentorum ymaginationis hominum

In the book ''Secretum de thesauro experimentorum ymaginationis hominum'' (Secret of the treasure-room of experiments in man's imagination), written ca. 1430, Fontana described

mnemonic A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding. Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and image ...

machines, written in his cypher. At least ''Bellicorum instrumentorum liber'' and this book used a cryptographic system, described as a simple, rational cipher, based on signs without letters or numbers. It has been suggested that some illustrations slightly resemble Voynich illustrations. During this time he also met with the Count of Carmagnola.

References

External links

''Bellicorum instrumentorum liber'' at the Bavarian State Library

* ttps://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10023795x/f15.item Complete scans of ''Secretum de Thesauro'' BNF NAL 635 {{DEFAULTSORT:Fontana, Giovanni 1395 births 1455 deaths Medieval Italian engineers 15th-century Italian physicians Venetian engineers Military technology books Italian male writers Medieval military writers Physicians from Venice 15th-century Venetian writers Venetian Renaissance humanists

Works

Bellicorum instrumentorum liber

Secretum de thesauro experimentorum ymaginationis hominum

See also

References

External links