Gianello della Torre or to Spaniards Juanelo Turriano or Giovanni Torriani, c. 1500 — 1585) was an Italo-Spanish

clockmaker A clockmaker is an artisan who makes and/or repairs clocks. Since almost all clocks are now factory-made, most modern clockmakers only repair clocks. Modern clockmakers may be employed by jewellers, antique shops, and places devoted strictly to ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

. He was born in Cremona.

Biography

Called to Spain in 1529 by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, he was appointed ''Court Clock Master'' and built the , an astronomical clock that made him famous in his time. Philip II of Spain named him . He worked and lived in Toledo, where he built the , an engine that, driven by the river itself, lifted water from the

Tagus The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections, to e ...

to a height of almost 100 meters, to supply the city and its castle ( Alcázar). He, however, did not get to be properly paid for its expenses. Turriano is attributed as the creator of the "Clockwork Prayer", an

automaton An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...

representing a monk manufactured in the 1560s based on a commission from Philip II of Spain. Following the recovery of his son, and in the belief that

Didacus of Alcalá Didacus of Alcalá ( es, Diego de Alcalá), also known as Diego de San Nicolás, was a Spanish Franciscan lay brother who served as among the first group of missionaries to the newly conquered Canary Islands. He died at Alcalá de Henares on 12 ...

had in some way intervened on his behalf, King Philip II of Spain would have commissioned Juanelo Turriano, mechanic to his father, to build a clockwork model of Didacus. The model would perform a number of set actions, including the beating of the breast which accompanies the prayer. An automaton of similar age, functions, and appearance is in the collections of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Another automaton associated with Turriano is a figure of a lady playing a lute housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. He died at Toledo in 1585.

Bibliography

* Zanetti, Cristiano. Janello Torriani and the Spanish Empire: A Vitruvian Artisan at the Dawn of the Scientific Revolution. Brill, 2017.

References

*This article is mostly translated from the longer Spanish language article.

External links

El artificio de Juanelo
The water fetching

.
Juanelo Turriano Foundation

Reconstrucción del artificio de Juanelo (PDF format) The new model of the hydraulic machine known as El Artificio de Juanelo in three-dimensional computer simulation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Turriano, Juanelo 1500s births 1585 deaths Scientists from Cremona Italian clockmakers Spanish clockmakers 16th-century Italian engineers 16th-century Italian inventors Italian emigrants to Spain 16th-century robots