Curious Inventions of Clock-work.
5. Gaffarel tell us, That he saw at Leghorn a Clock, brought thither by a German, to be sold, which had many Rarities in it; for besides an infinite number of strange Motions, which appear'd not at all to the Eye, you had there a Company of Shepherds, some of them playing at Bagpipes, with such Harmony, and exquisite Motion of the Fingers, as that one would have thought they had been alive, others dancing by Couples, keeping exact Time and Measure, whilst others caper'd and leaped up and down with so much nimbleness, that my Spirits were wholly ravish'd with the Sight (saith he). Gaffar, Curios. c. 7. p. 236.
6. Copernicus made an excellent Clock, in which there was not only to be heard, a number of different Noises, occasioned by its various Motions, but also most exactly to be discovered the Circuitions of all the Coelestial Orbs; the Distinctions of Days, Months, Years; there the Zodiack did explicate its Signs: So performing the Circle of the Year; there the playing Ram began the Spring, Cancer produces the Summer, Libra enriches it with Autumn, and the Slothful Scorpio makes the Winter. Here also the Moon changes in the Nones, shines out more bright in the Ides, and shamefully conceives her Conjuction with the Sun in the Kalends. But those things which the Ingenious Artificer presented, and as it were, produced in the Scene, upon the entrance of every Hour, marvellously de∣lighted the Spectators, every Hour made Shew of some Mystery in our Faith. The first Creation of the Light, the powerful Separation of the Elements, and all other inter∣mediate Mysteries he had traced upon this Engine, even to the great Eclipse that was, when our Saviour suffered on Mount-Calvary; to insist upon the particulars, was the work of an Age; the Eye that is the Devourer of such Beautiful Objects, embrace more in an Hour, than the Tongue is able to represent in a considerable space of time. Fortes. feria Acad. pag. 58.
7. A. 1571. Conraldus Dusipodius invented the most famous Clock at Strasburg. Before the Clock stand a Globe on the Ground, shewing the Motions of the Heavens, Stars, Pla∣nets, namely, of the Heaven, carried about by the first Mover, in 24 Hours, of Saturn, by his proper Motion, carried about in 30 Years, of Jupiter in 12, of Mars in 2, of the Sun, Mercury and Venus in one Year, of the Moon in a Month. In the Clock it self there be two Tables on the Right and Left Hand, shewing the Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, from the Year 1573. to A. 1624. The third Table in the midst is divided into three Parts. In the first Part the Statues of Apollo and Diana, shew the Course of the the Year, and the Day thereof, being carried about in one Year; the second Part shews the Year of our Lord, and of the World, the Equinoctial Days, the Hours of each Day, the Minutes of each Hour, Easter-day, and all other Feasts, and the Dominical Letter; the third Part hath the Geographical Description of all Germany, and particularly of Stras∣burgh, and the Names of the Inventors, and of all the Work-men. In the middle Frame of the Clock is an Astrolabe, shewing the Sign in which each Planet is every Day, and there be the Statues of the seven Planets upon a round piece of Iron, lying flat; so that every Day the Statue of that Planet that rules the day, comes forth, the rest being hid within the Frames, till they come out by course at their day, as the Sun upon Sunday, and so for all the Week. And there is a Terrestrial Globe, and the Quarter, and the Half Hour, and the Minutes are shew'd there. There is also the Skull of a dead Man, and two Statues of two Boys; whereof one turns the Hour-Glass, when the Clock hath struck, the other puts forth the Rod in his Hand at each Stroke of the Clock. Moreover, there