The Ramellian Bookwheel

Abstract

Agostino Ramelli’s theatre of machines of 1588 includes a design for a bookwheel, a machine rotating on a horizontal axle which would hold a number of large books open simultaneously in such a way that a reader could bring each into view in turn. Since the 1990s, the Ramellian bookwheel has become an icon of early modern techniques of reading. This paper gives an account of Ramelli’s design and its fortuna; surveys the history of rotating reading machines before Ramelli (all of which pivoted on vertical axles); gives an account of all the known bookwheels constructed on Ramellian and similar principles from the early seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century; and argues that these machines appear to have been used as catalogue stands or displayed as prestige objects in great libraries rather than to have aided the reading of learned individuals.

Introduction

“…The Ramellian book wheel -allowing several books to be consulted at once -has become an icon of early modern reading, and while few owned such an item, many read multiple books at the same time. 31 Marginal notes illustrate the results of those encounters, highlighting how even solitary reading engages in larger conversations. Anthony Grafton and William Sherman, for example, have shown how two renowned Hellenists -Thomas Smith and Isaac Casaubonread their copies of Flavius Josephus very differently, drawing on different works to critique and interpret the text.…”