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II.—Aeolipiles as Fire-blowers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

W. L. Hildburgh
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Extract

An aeolipile is a device whose essential feature is that vapour confined in it under pressure can issue from it only through a small aperture. Although the Oxford English Dictionary agrees with the French Academy in deriving ‘aeolipile’ from a combination of the name of the god of the winds, Aeolus, and the Latin pylae or the Greek Πύλαι, implying thus that originally it meant something like ‘doorway of Aeolus’ or ‘gates of the winds’, I am inclined to accept rather its derivation from ‘Aeolus’ and the Latin pila, a ball, and an original meaning ‘ball of Aeolus’ or ‘of the winds’. Vitruvius, writing during the reign of Augustus, says, in a passage concerned with the winds, ‘id autem verum esse ex aeolipilis aereis licet aspicere … fiunt enim aeolipilae aereae cavae. hae habent punctum angustissimum quo aquae infunduntur conlocanturque ad ignem, et antequam calescent non habent ullum spiritum, simul autem ut fervere coeperint, efficiunt ad ignem vehementem flatum’. This seems to show pretty clearly, by both the form of the word and the description of the object to which Vitruvius applies it, that the word was based on pila and not on pylae. Conceivably it was the spherical shape of early aeolipilic fire-blowers which suggested the trunnioned steam-filled ball provided with projecting L-shaped tubes from which the steam could issue and, by its reaction, cause the ball to revolve, which Hero of Alexandria describes in his Pneumatika, and which is still used to demonstrate to students a jet of steam's inherent reactive force. Hero's text does not, however, include any word relatable to the term Vitruvius applied to his fire-blowing spheres.

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Research Article
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Archaeologia , Volume 94 , 1951 , pp. 27 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1951

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References

page 27 note 1 Cf. O.E.D., s.v. ‘Aeolipyle, -pile … also eolipyle, -pile’;Littré, , Dict, de la langue frangçise, 1863, s.v.Google Scholar ‘Éolipyle’;Bescherelle, , Nouveau Dict, national, 1887, s.v.Google Scholar ‘Éolipyle’. Cf. alsoTommaseo, (and others), Diz. della lingua italiana, 1929, s.v.Google Scholar ‘Eolipila’; etc.

page 27 note 2 Cf. Hatzfeld and Darmesteter, Dict, général de la langue française, s.v. ‘Éolipile et Éolipyle’;Heyse, J. A. C., Fremdwörterbuch, 1903, s.v.Google Scholar ‘Äolus, … Äolusball’;Johnson, Samuel, Dictionary (ed. 1773), s.v.Google Scholar ‘Eolipile’.

page 27 note 3 Cf.Rose, Valentinus, Vitruvii de Architectura (Leipzig, 1867), i, 6, 2Google Scholar; Choisy, A., Vitruve (Paris, 1909), i, 11, 4–6Google Scholar. Choisy gives (loc. cit.) a French translation; a Ger- man translation is given bySchmidt, Wilhelm, Herons von Alexandria Druckwerke und Automatentheater (Leipzig, 1899), p. 491Google Scholar. A footnote of Rose's (loc. cit.) suggests that some of the medieval copyists had difficulty with the word in question. F. Granger, in his translation of the above passage (cf.Vitruvius on Architecture, in Loeb Classical Library, 1931, i, p. 55)Google Scholar, seems to go beyond its sense in speaking of ‘figures of Aeolus’; and perhaps also in rendering punctum as ‘point’ rather than ‘aperture’.

page 27 note 4 There is some uncertainty concerning the period at which Hero wrote; conjectures have ranged from the later half of the third century B.C. to about the end of the second century B.C.—now most generally accepted—or even considerably later. There is nothing in Hero's text, beyond the broad statement that he added his own discoveries to those ‘handed down by other writers’, to suggest that he invented either the rotating steam-ball or the contrivances (cf. pp. 30f. infra) he describes in which a steam-jet is employed to blow burning coals. The rotating steam-ball is described in Proposition 50 of the Pneumatika, and an analogous device for rotating a disc by means of heated air in Proposition 70; cf.Woodcraft, Bennet, The Pneumatics of Hero of Alexandria (London, 1851)Google Scholar.

page 28 note 1 Cf. Heyse, he. cit.

page 28 note 2 Cf.Wilkins, John, Mathematicall Magick (London, 1648), p. 149Google Scholar.

page 28 note 3 Basilius Valentinus, after describing an aeolipile consisting of a copper ball about the size of a head, having in it a very small hole, and pointing out that if filled with water and set upon glowing coals it may be used to blow them, suggests the use of analogous aeolipiles for ventilating mines; cf.Bergwerckschatz (Frankfurt, a/M., 1618), pp. 128 f. (chap, xxxvi)Google Scholar. The English translation of this, chap, xxxvi ofThe Last Will and Testament of Basil Valentine (London, 1671)Google Scholar, ‘Of Spiro, or of the blast’, describes (pp. 75 f.) the ball-shaped aeolipile but does not refer to the possibility of the use of aeolipiles for mineventilation. Hatzfeld and Darmesteter give (loc. cit.) ‘Ventilateur pour chasser la fumée’ as an alternative definition for ‘Éolipile’.

page 28 note 4 Paré, A., ‘II. Discours tovchant le faict de harquebuzardes, et autres bastons à feu’ (cf. Les oeuvres d'Ambroise Paré, 6th ed. [Paris, 1607], p. 415)Google Scholar.

page 28 note 5 Cf.Kestler, J. S., Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis, 1675 (Amsterdam, 1680), p. 173Google Scholar.

page 28 note 6 Cf.Ercker, L., Beschreibung Allerfürnemsten Mineralischen … (Prague, 1574)Google Scholar, Title-page and p. ciii r.; ibid., (Frankfurt a/M., 1598), pp. 1 r., 98 v.

page 28 note 7 Dict., loc. cit.

page 29 note 1 Cf.Palissy, B., Discours admirables, de la nature des eaux et fontaines … (Paris, 1580)Google Scholar: ‘j'ay consideré une pome d'airain qu'il n'y aura qu'vn petit d'eau dedans, & estant eschauffee sur les charbons, elle poussera vn vent tresuehemet qu'elle fera brusler le bois au feu, ores qu'il ne fut coupé que du jour mesme.’

page 29 note 2 Compare, however, remarks infra (pp. 53 ff.) concerning the enigmatic medieval earthenware objects which have been found in large numbers in western Asia and northern Africa.

page 29 note 3 About the year 1912 our Fellow, the late O. M. Dalton, began preparation of a note, intended for reading before the Society, on the Society's aeolipile and on a repousse copper head (cf. p. 49 infra) made for use as an aeolipile which for some time had been in the British Museum's Department of British and Medieval Antiquities. This projected note he abandoned, for some unrecorded reason, leaving it—presumably with the intention of adding further material—in the form of a rough draft. That draft, together with the notes used while preparing it, remained at the British Museum in the Departmental archives until October 1947, when I, having been asked to prepare a memoir on the Society's aeolipile and the one found at Henley in 1937, recalled my several discussions with Dalton while he was engaged on his draft and in consequence applied to the Department for permission to consuit his notes. Although the draft, which the Department courteously placed in my hands, refers to no material objects with which I was previously unacquainted, it contains a number of observations which I think well deserve quotation in this connexion. Of fire-blowing aeolipiles it says: ‘Perhaps this method of quickening a fire by steam was popular because the blower, once set in operation, worked automatically, and did not require the attention demanded by bellows. With wood fires, or charcoal, it must have been efficient, otherwise it would never have remained popular so long. With coal fires, it hardly seems to repay the initial trouble of filling the receptacle, either by immersion in a bucket, or by the use of a narrow funnel, That, at least, was the conclusion arrived at after experiments (unauthorized) with the Society's example on the table. A jet of steam did issue, and did appear to intensify the part of the fire it reached; but the fire looked much the same after the experiment as it did before. And, ex hypothesi, the heat has to be considerable before the figure is set to work, otherwise the water would not keep boiling. Perhaps the advent of the steady-burning coal fire really abolished these curious accessories of the fireside in Europe, still leaving them a sphere of utility in those parts of the world where other fuels are employed.’

page 31 note 1 ‘Drawn expressly for this work.’

page 31 note 2 Op. cit., figs. 78a, 78b, and 79, with Greek text and German translation on pp. 305 ff. and 317 ff.

page 31 note 3 Cf. Philo (Philon) of Byzantium, Le Livre des appareils pneumatiques …, edited byVaux, Baron Carra de from Arabic manuscripts at Oxford and Constantinople, in Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Nationale (Paris, 1903), p. 196Google Scholar. The construction is illustrated by an accompanying line-engraving.

page 31 note 4 Reproduced, by courtesy ofDr Meyer, Erich, from Falke, O. von and Meyer, Erich, Bronsegeräte des Mittelalters: Romanische Leuchter und Gefässe, Giessgefässe Gotik (Berlin, 1935), figs. 215a, 215bGoogle Scholar.

page 31 note 5 Measurements and analysis (made in 1810), as given byFeldhaus, F. M., ‘Über Zweck und Entstehungszeit der sogen. Püstriche’, in Mittheilungen aus dem Germanischen Nationalmuseum (Nuremberg, 1908), pp. 140–5Google Scholar. An enlarged, in some directions elaborated, and well-illustrated version of this appears inFeldhaus's, F. M.Die Technik der Vorzeit,der geschichtlichen zeit und der Naturvölker (Leipzig and Berlin, 1914), s.v.Google Scholar ‘Püstriche’; and a condensed version of this latter in hisDie Technik der Antike und des Mittelalters (Potsdam, 1931), pp. 298fGoogle Scholar.

page 31 note 6 Cf.Wagener, S. C., Handbuch der vorzüglichsten, in Deutschland entdeckten Alterthümer aus heidnischer Zeit (Weimar, 1842), p. 361Google Scholar; a line-engraving of the image is given in fig. 1138.

page 32 note 1 Cf.Fabricius, Georgius, De Metallicis rebus ac nominibus observationes variae (Zurich, 1566) [I believe that there is a somewhat earlier edition], p. 13 v. (in chap, iv, ‘Aes’)Google Scholar: ‘In Thuringia à familia nobili Dutgerodia, idolum quoddam aeneū asseruatur, in fundametis arcis Rotenbergiae, quae deferta nunc iacet, inuentum in sacello subterraneo: idolū appellant Pustericum, statura pueri formatum: … Intus cauam est: & aqua repletum, atcβ igne circumdatū, cum ingenti sonitu aquam illam in astantes instar flammarum euomit.’

page 32 note 2 I am indebted to Dr. H. Swarzenski for knowledge of this interesting document. His inquiries, from printrooms at Berlin and Munich and in America, and mine in the British Museum, have failed to disclose its origin. A picture of the ‘Piistrich’, similarly on a large scale and set in a landscape, emitting steam from both the crown of its head and from its mouth, although without fire beneath it or worshippers about it, and without a second representation in the background, is given inTentzel's, E.Monatliche Unterreden (Leipzig, 1690)Google Scholar(reproduction in Falsche Slawengōtter [cf. n. 8 infra], pl. vin).

page 32 note 3 Cf.Rabe, M. F., Der Püstrich zu Sondershausen, kein Gotzenbild (Berlin, 1852), chap. vGoogle Scholar.

page 32 note 4 Ibid., pp. 39 f. Cf. alsoGrimm, , Deutsches Wbrterbuch (1889), s.v.Google Scholar ‘Pusten’, ‘Püster’.

page 32 note 5 Cf.Hastings, , Encyclo. Religion and Ethics, s.v. ‘Dwarfs and Pygmies’, p. 122Google Scholar.

page 32 note 6 Cf. op. cit.

page 32 note 7 Cf. p. 31, n. 5 supra.

page 32 note 8 On this aspect of the Sondershausen ‘Püstrich’, cf.Franz, Leonhard, Falsche Slawengötter, 2nd ed. (Brünn and Munich, and Vienna, 1943), pp. 62 ffGoogle Scholar. The first edition of this, printed privately in 1941 for members of a Leipzig antiquarian society, embodiedFranz's, article, ‘Der Piistrich’, which had appeared in 1940Google Scholar in Mitteldeutsche Volkheit: Hefte für Vorgeschichte, Rassenkunde und Volkskunde, 7th Year (a typescript copy of this article, kindly sent me by Dr. Bruno Thomas, of the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum, at Mr. J. F. Hayward's request, contains nothing not repeated in the corresponding text of the book). The book, which deals with a considerable number of objects, some of them true antiquities whose origins had been forgotten, others forgeries made with a view to sale or as mere mystifications, concerns itself with the Sondershausen ‘Piistrich’ mainly because of that object's former wide acceptance as a putative divinity, but includes references to, and brief extracts from, much of the literature touching on analogous aeolipiles on the Continent, and gives small half-tone reproductions of some of those pictured inFeldhaus's, Die Technik, 1914 edGoogle Scholar.

page 33 note 1 In the view also of v. Falke, some quarter of a century later than Feldhaus's article (which he mentions) of 1908; cf. v.Falke, and Meyer, , op. cit., p. 34Google Scholar.

page 33 note 2 Cf.Rabe, , op. cit., chap, xvi, with diagram facing p. 212Google Scholar.

page 33 note 3 Cf.Way, Albert, Catalogue of Antiquities … in the Possession of the Society of Antiquaries, 1847 (London, 1847), p. 22Google Scholar.

page 33 note 4 Cf.Journ. Brit. Archaeol. Assn. vi (1851), p. 345Google Scholar.

page 33 note 5 Cf.Vernon, W. F., in Archaeol. journ. viii (1851), p. 194Google Scholar.

page 33 note 6 Cf.Berthelot, P. E. M., ‘Le Livre d'un ingénieur militaire à fin du XIVe siécle’, mjourn. des savants, 1900, pp. 1-15, 85–94Google Scholar.

page 33 note 7 Cf.B. Alberti Magni: Opera omnia, iv (Paris, 1890), p. 634 (in Tract. II, cap. 17)Google Scholar.

page 34 note 1 ‘quod si sumatur vas aerum forte quod sit intus bene concavum, et habeat parvum foramen supra, et aliud habeat in ventre parum majus, habeatque vas pedes ita quod venter ejus non tangat terrain, et implentur vas aqua, et postea lignis fortiter obstruatur unumquodque foramen ipsius, et ponatur in igne valde calido, generator vapor in vase, quem fortificatum retro erumpit per alterum foramen obstructum: et si irrumpit superius, longe projicit aquam sparsam super loca adjacentia igni: et si inferius erumpit, projicit aquam sparsam in ignem, et impetu vaporis pro-jicit titiones et carbones et cineres calidos longe ab igne super circumstantia loca: et ideo etiam vas illud vulgariter sufflator vocatur, et solet figurari ad figuram hominis sufflantis.’

page 34 note 2 Cf.Ryff, Walther H. (Rivius, G. H.), Der furnembsten notwendigsten der ganzten Architectur … (Nuremberg, 1547), p. xx r.Google Scholar; ibid., Vitruvius Teutsch (Nuremberg, 1548), i, 6, p. xlv v. The engraving was reprinted in several later editions of these translations. In both of the early editions cited above, as well as in some of the later editions, it is accompanied by a picture of a number of related objects—three of them vase-shaped vessels provided each with a vertical nozzle in the centre of the top, presumably, as steam ascends from two of the nozzles, designed as aeoli-piles; the remaining two, spheres (one of them furnished with long radial spikes), from which issue what appears intended to represent flames, presumably incendiary missiles (compare Kyeser's ‘Philoneus’ mentioned below, and the fire-bombs referred to on pp. 52-5 infra). The same five aeolipiles (but not an aeolipile corresponding to our fig. 1), varied only in details, appear in a number of earlier sixteenth-century editions of Vitruvius's ‘Architecture’: e.g. in the Como edition of 1521, p. xxiii r., in Italian; and in the Strasburg edition of 1543. The Venice edition of 1524 shows (p. 9 r.) a design for a large globular aeolipile—which, as it has its orifice at one end of a horizontal diameter, presumably was intended for blowing a fire-ornamented in relief with a large crouching dragonlike beast beneath whose snout is the blowing-hole, and with a man bending forward at the hips and supporting with one upraised hand a tube at whose extremity is the blowing-hole.

page 35 note 1 Reproduced fromMartin's, IanArchitecture ov Art de bien bastir (Paris, 1547), p. n rGoogle Scholar.

page 35 note 2 Cf. Die Technik der Vorzeit…, figs. 552-5.

page 35 note 3 ‘Ego sum Philoneus, cupreus, argenteus ipse, Aereus seu terreus, aureus vel fortis minere. Vacuus non uro, sed repletus terebintho,

Baccho vel ardenti, corpus meum applica foco,

Nam calefactus ego igneas emitto scintillas

Per quas tu possis accendere quamcumque candelam’;

cf.Berthelot, , op. cit. p. 90Google Scholar. I do not know whether ‘Philoneus’ was designed for a serious purpose or whether he was intended merely as a scientific toy.

page 35 note 4 The middle of this figure has been obliterated by inklines, close together, drawn across it.

page 35 note 5 ‘Dieser Kopf, der, wie du ihn hier abgebildet siehst, In seinem Mund Schwefelstaub hat, zündet eine Kerze, so oft sie ausgelöscht wird, immer wieder an. Wenn sie seinem Mund genähert wird, schiesst der Feuerstrahl heraus.’ Cf.Feldhaus, , op. cit. col. 845Google Scholar.

page 36 note 1 Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. Phil Drabble, who had the negatives made specially for use in illustrating this communication, and Mr. R. L. Vernon, the lord of Hilton.

page 36 note 2 The rough sketch accompanying Plot's account (cf. infra) attempts to mask these parts by foliage which is absent from the object itself.

page 36 note 3 Cf.Plot, Robert, The Natural History of Staffordshire (Oxford, 1686), pp. 433 fGoogle Scholar.

page 36 note 4 This account suggests that a brazier was still, in the first third of the seventeenth century, in use for heating the hall at Hilton.

page 37 note 1 Archaeol.Journ. viii (1851), pp. 192 fGoogle Scholar.

page 37 note 2 Ibid. p. 194.

page 37 note 3 Cf.Beard, C. R., Lucks and Talismans (London, 1934), chap, v, ‘Tenure Lucks’Google Scholar.

page 38 note 1 Cf.Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Antient Tenures of Land, and Jocular Customs of some Mannors, by Blount, Thomas (London, 1679)Google Scholar; ibid., enlarged and corrected by'Josiah Beckwith (York, 1784); ibid., with additions by H. M. Beckwith (London, 1815).

page 38 note 2 Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. W. A. Smallcombe, director of the Reading Museum.

page 38 note 3 ‘Two Hearth-blowers from Henley-on-Thames and Basingstoke’, printed in Berkshire Archaeol. Journ. (1947), pp. 98–101Google Scholar.

page 39 note 1 From negatives belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.

page 39 note 2 Cf. Way, loc. cit.;Archaeologia, xiii (1800), p. 410 and pl. xxvn (figs. 1-3)Google Scholar; Minutes Soc. Antiq. xxvii, p. 249Google Scholar.

page 41 note 1 Cf. v.Falke, and Meyer, , op. cit. figs. 210, 211Google Scholar.

page 41 note 2 Reproduced by courtesy of Herr v. Hirsch, from whom I have received, besides the photograph, my information concerning the object itself.

page 41 note 3 These two letters, which are indistinct, have been presumed to represent a contraction of either inns or ensis. The inscription thus associates the figure with the Val Lagarina, the lower part, near Roveredo, of the valley of the Adige, or, perhaps even more closely, with Villa Lagarina, about two miles north of Roveredo; cf.Boeckler, A., Die Bronzetür von Verona (Marburg, 1931), p. 37Google Scholar, with four excellent photogravures (front, back, two sides) of the object. Two views (front, back) are reproduced byFalke, V. and Meyer, , op. cit. figs. 214 a, b, with text on p. 34Google Scholar.

page 42 note 1 Cf.Boeckler, , loc. cit.Google Scholar; Falke, V. and Meyer, , op. cit. p. 34Google Scholar.

page 42 note 2 Andirons, whose front part consisted of an arched foot surmounted by a rectangular pillar whose front was shaped as a human figure, or had a human head at the top, would seem to have been not uncommon in France in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; cf.d'Allemagne, H. R., Les Accessoires du costume et du mobilier (Paris, 1928), pls. CCLVI, CCLVIIIGoogle Scholar. A cast-iron figure of a standing monk, with a triangular tenon at the back, presumed by d'Allemagne to be correspondingly part of a fire-dog, is shown loc. cit. p. CCLVI, 5. Although I do not recall any medieval Italian andirons, whether of bronze or of iron, consisting in part of human figures, ornamental fire-dogs would appear to have been fairly common in Italy of the fifteenth century, and presumably also of the fourteenth.

page 42 note 3 Reproduced by courtesy of the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum. Concerning it, cf.Schlosser, J. von, Die Kunst-und Wunderkammern der Spdtrenaissance (Leipzig, 1908), p. 113Google Scholar.

page 43 note 1 Most of the details given above were obtained, at my request, by Mr. J. F. Hayward during a visit to Vienna early in 1949.

page 43 note 2 Reproduced from ‘Ein Sarmatisches oder Sorbisch-Wendisches Götzenbild’, inCuriositdten… (published by ‘Vulpius’), vi (1817), pp. 163–5, pl. VIGoogle Scholar; on tn e same plate is a representation of the back, and one of the right side. All three representations look to have been taken from sketches rather than direct from the object, and to be unreliable; reproduction from Curiositdten, in Franz's Falsche Slawen götter, pl. XIII. The descriptive text (p. 163) gives an impression that it, too, has been based on such sketches, as it is somewhat hazy and lacks both dimensions and other precise particulars.

page 43 note 3 ‘Relatio de Idolo Induth reperto in Sinckhausen anno 776. Idolum erat ex aere fusum parvae staturae, dextra sceptrum gerens, sinistram ad latus icurvatam gerens, capite vix notabiliter aperto.’

page 43 note 4 Cf.Jordan, W., ‘Ein Hinweis auf einen weiteren Piisterich von Siddinghausen (Kreis Biiren)’, supplementary to Franz's article in Mitteldeutsche Volkheit, 1940 (cf. p. 32, n. 8 supra)Google Scholar.

page 44 note 1 Cf.Sighart, J., Albertus Magnus (Regensburg, 1857), p. 80, n. 5Google Scholar.

page 44 note 2 One is reminded of the name ‘fire-devils’, by which the Himalayan fire-blowing aeolipiles (cf. p. 51 infra) are known to Europeans in India.

page note 3 Wagener repeats (loc. cit.) a tradition to the effect that the Sondershausen ‘Püstrich’—which much German opinion long looked upon as a pre-Christian divinity of the Germans or of the Slavs—was an idol adored by the ancient Saxons, and that St. Boniface, who in the eighth century evangelized the Saxons, caused its temple to be destroyed and itself to be buried deep. While it is very probable that this tradition had no more basis in fact than a number of other legends of the same kind associating Boniface with the destruction of particular pagan images in Germany, I think it worth recalling here because of the seemingly curious parallelisms between the Sondershausen ‘Püstrich’ and its three English cousins—and possibly also because Boniface was educated at Winchester, which is not far distant from Basingstoke where the aeolipile belonging to the Society of Antiquaries was found. The possibility is suggested that a prototype of some sort may have existed either in England or in Germany and have influenced the form of fire-blowers of the ‘Püstrich’ type in both lands, and that a residue of the connexion survived in Germany in the presumably ill-founded association of the Sonder-shausen image with the Englishman Boniface.

page 45 note 1 Cf.‘Observations on Stone Pillars, Crosses, and Crucifixes’, in Archaeologia, xiii (1800), p. 212Google Scholar.

page 45 note 2 Cf. pp. 32 f. supra.

page 45 note 3 Velazquez, who painted portraits of a number of the dwarfs attached to the Spanish Court of his time, shows in his picture of Sebastian de Morra, seated on the ground, an excellent example of a male dwarf of this kind.

page 45 note 4 Photograph by courtesy of the British Museum.

page 46 note 1 Just as the bird-forms of Himalayan ‘fire-devils’, with wings and a tail, would appear to have developed out of simple conical vessels having a nozzle pointing downward and, in a way, resembling a bird's bill; cf. p. 51 infra.

page 46 note 2 Cf. ‘Jack’, sb.1,33.

page 46 note 3 Ibid., sb.1,37.

page 46 note 4 Ibid., sb.1, 38.

page 46 note 5 Ibid., sb.3

page 46 note 6 Ibid., sb.1,4.

page 47 note 1 The Golden Bough: The Magic Art (1917), ii, p. 255Google Scholar, quotingCasati, G., Ten Years in Equatoria (1989), i, p. 157, andGoogle ScholarBurrows, Guy, The Land of the Pigmies (1898), p. 199Google Scholar.

page 47 note 2 N.H. vi, 35 (on Æthiopia); cf. Bostock and Riley's translation, Bonn's ed. (1855), ii, pp. 101 f.

page note 3 ‘Erano li alari in questa forma fatti: quella parte che sostenuano le legnie, erano di grosso ferro; dalla parte dinanzi era uno uaso di bronzo; el couerchio era uno putto nudo, che ghonfiaua le ghote. Et in modo era congegniato, che soffiaua nel fuoco fortissamente, quando erano al fuoco a scaldarsi, o doue l'uomo gli auessi uoltati. Nel modo, che erano fatti, si é questo: erano uoti e ben saldati, e sottili: e empieuansi d'acqua per lo bucho della boccha, cioé per lo foro proprio, donde soffiauano, ch'era nel mezzo della boccha; con uno bucho insul capo, i[l] quale si turaua poi bene inmodo, che none sfiataua da altro luogho se non é dalla bocca; e mentre duraua quella acqua, ma cessauano di soffiare, come fusse uno mantacho.’ Cf.Oettingen, Wolfgang von, Antonio Averlino Filarete's Tractat über die Baukunst (i.e. Trattato dell' Architettura) (Vienna, 1890), pp. 309 fGoogle Scholar.

page 48 note 1 Compare Konrad Kyeser's ‘Philoneus’, which he wrote might be made either of metal or of earthenware; cf. p. 35 supra.

page 48 note 2 Cf.Palingenius, Marcellus, Zodiacus vitae (ed. Lyons, , 1589, p. 339)Google Scholar: Vidi ego dum Romae decimo regnante Leone,

Essem, opus à figulo factum iuvenisq; figuram,

Efflantem angusto validum ventum oris hiatu;

Quippe cauo infusam retinebat pectore lympham,

Quae subiecto igne resoluta exibat ab ore,

In faciem venti validiq, longe furebat.

Ergo etiam ventus resoluta emittitur vnda,

Dum vapor exhalans fugit impellente calore.

Namque fugare solent sese contraria semper.

An English rendering of the passage is given (under ‘Aquarius’) inThe Zodiake ofLife, a translation by Barnabe Googe, printed in London in 1565Google ScholarPubMed.

page 48 note 3 ‘17 Octobre 1448.—“A Jacobo de Becutis, serviteur de Messire Bianchardin, le XVIIe jour dudit mois, VI florins, que ledit seigneur luy a donnez en considération de ce qu'il luy a apporte de Romme une teste d'arain qui souffle le feu”’; cf.Marche, A. Lecoy de la, Extraits des comptes et memoriaux du rot René (Paris, 1873), p. 296, extract 666Google Scholar.

page 48 note 4 Reproduced fromGaz. archéologique, xii (1887), pl. 39Google Scholar.

page 48 note 5 Cf.Courajod, L., ‘Quelques sculptures en bronze de Filarete’, loc. cit., p. 290Google Scholar.

page 48 note 6 Cf.Guida illustrata del Museo Civico Correr di Venezia (Venice, 1909), p. 76Google Scholar: ‘E il busto a tutto tondo di un ragazzo moro colla bocca semiaperta in atto di soffiare. Era destinato a servire come attizzatoio….’Lazari, V., in his Notizie delle opere d'arte e d'antichità della Raccolta Correr di Venezia (Venice, 1859)Google Scholar, failed to apprehend the purpose of the piece, saying (p. 195) only 1031. Busto di fanciullo etiope, con vesta a rabeschi, nello stile italiano del resorgimento, i ricciuti capelli sono regolamente con-dutti a bulino; la bocca é in atto di soffiare e perforata, a contener forse un tubo per isgorgo d'acqua. A. 28c’.

page 49 note 1 Reproduced by courtesy of the Hamburg Museum from its negative 2655.

page 49 note 2 Cf.Brinckmann, J., Das Hamburgische Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe (Hamburg and Leipzig, 1894), p. 764Google Scholar, with line-engraving of the object.

page 49 note 3 Presumably while the enclosed air or water-vapour is hot, so that as it contracts on cooling the water may be sucked in; cf. p. 30 supra.

page 49 note 4 Reproduced by courtesy of the British Museum.

page 49 note 5 Cf.Planiscig, L., Collezione Camillo Castiglioni: Catalogo dei Bronzi (Vienna, 1923), no. 9Google Scholar.

page 49 note 6 Cf.Falke, O. von, Die Sammlung C. Castiglioni (Ball, H. and Graupe, P., Berlin, 1930)Google Scholar.

page 49 note 7 Cf.Musee du Louvre: Catalogue des Bronzes et Cuivres (Paris, 1904), no. 39, pp. 53 fGoogle Scholar. (text), 51 (fig.). The head was acquired in 1893.

page 49 note 8 From a negative Giraudon.

page 50 note 1 Cf. supra.

page 50 note 2 Reproduced fromCodice Atlantico di Leonardo da Vinci nella Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano, published by the Lincei, R. Accademia dei (Milan, 1894-1904), pl. MCCCLXXIX (a photographic reproduction of fol. 400 v.)Google Scholar. The Codex Atlantico is datable 1490 to perhaps 1518.

page 50 note 3 Ibid., Text, p. 1309.

page 50 note 4 Cf.Branca, Giovanni, Le Machine (Rome, 1629), pl. xxv (of first section of book)Google Scholar. His illustration is reproduced byDickinson, H. W., A Short History of the Steam Engine (Cambridge, 1939), p. 193Google Scholar; and byFeldhaus, , Die Technik, fig. 128Google Scholar.

page 50 note 5 Reproduced inKestler's, Physiologia Kircheriana (cf. p. 28, n. s supra), p. 173Google Scholar.

page 51 note 1 Photograph by courtesy of the British Museum.

page 51 note 2 One at Oxford, in the Pitt Rivers Museum, has its wings and a fan-like tail riveted, as if on pivots, to the receptacle. The rivet-holes have, however, by some means been rendered water-tight.

page 52 note 1 For a comprehensive discussion of the factors leading o t chance discoveries and their exploitation, and/or deliberate invention, seeHarrison, H. S., ‘Opportunism and the Factors of Invention’, in American Anthropologist (New Series), xxxii (1930), pp. 106–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 53 note 1 Compare the incendiary aeolipiles mentioned on p. 34, n. 2 supra as shown in sixteenth-century editions of Vitruvius.

page 53 note 2 For a discussion of one found at Samarra (cf.Iraq Government, Dept. of Antiquities, Excavations at Samarra, 1936-1939, Bagdad, 1940, Part II, pp. 3 f. and pis. VIII, ixGoogle Scholar; andSerjeant, H. B., in Ars Islamica, xi-fxii, 1946, pp. 203 f.)Google Scholar, whose upper surface carries an inscription, incised in Cufic characters, at first read as referring to wine but subsequently explained as a simple beneficent phrase of the kind placed on Islamic objects of many sorts; cf.Sauvaget, J., ‘Flaconsavin ou grenades a feu gregeois?’, in Annuaire de Vlnstitut de Philologie et d'Histoire orientales et slaves, ix, 1949, pp. 525–30Google Scholar. Sauvaget argues in favour of the hypothesis that the vessels were grenades for flinging ‘Greek fire’; he does not, however, suggest any reason why such an inscription should be put on an object to be thrown at any enemy with the expectation (as he says of the pottery ‘grenades’) that it would break into pieces.

page 53 note 3 Cf. (E.)Lane, Arthur, Early Islamic Pottery, London, 1947, pp. 27 fGoogle Scholar.

page 53 note 4 Cf.Gohlke, W., ‘Handbrandgeschosse aus Ton’, in Zeits. für historische Waffenkunde, vi (Dresden, 1912-1914), pp. 377–87Google Scholar, with pictures of many examples and tables of sizes, weights, thicknesses, etc. Further examples have been reproduced by, among others,Sarre, F., Baalbek, iii (Berlin and Leipzig, 1925), pp. 134 f.Google Scholar; Tallgren, A. M., Collection Zaousailov au Musée National de Finlande à Helsing-fors, ii (Helsingfors, 1918), pl. vGoogle Scholar; and Lenz (cf. n. 7 infra).

page 53 note 5 For a number referring to the Islamic naphtha-troops and their weapons and protective clothing, cf.Wiedemann, Eilhard, ‘Beitrage … VI. zur Mechanik und Technik bei den Arabern’, in Sitsungsberichten der Physikalisch-Medizinischen Societät in Erlangen, xxxviii (Erlangen, 1906), pp. 39 fGoogle Scholar.

page 53 note 6 Cf. Gohlke, op. cit. Interesting in this connexion is a drawing of the mid-thirteenth century of a battle between English and French ships, in which one man is depicted using a loop to sling a round-bottomed bottle, and another is about to discharge an arrow whose head is in the neck of a similar bottle. The drawing is reproduced from MS. 26, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, f. 52, byJames, M. R., ‘The Drawings of Matthew Prior’, in Walpole Society Volume, xiv (1920), pl. ixGoogle Scholar.

page 53 note 7 Cf.Lenz, E., ‘Handgranaten oder Quecksilbergefässel’, in Zeits.für hist.Wáffenkunde, vi, pp. 367–76Google Scholar, including photographic reproductions of seventeen examples of various forms. For counter arguments cf.Gohlke, , op. cit., pp. 379fGoogle Scholar.

page 54 note 1 There may be recalled, too, in this connexion, the earthenware steam fire-blower that Marcellus Palingenius saw in Rome (cf. p. 48 supra).