Agostino Ramelli (1531–ca. 1610) was an Italian people engineer best known for writing and illustrating the book of engineering designs Le diverse et artificiose machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli, which contains, among others, his design for the bookwheel.
Biography
Ramelli was born in
Ponte Tresa or Mesanzena, today in
Switzerland. During the Siege of La Rochelle (1572–1573), he successfully engineered a mine under a bastion and breached the fortification,
["One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and Screw" Witold Rybczynski p.47] making him popular with his commander, Henri d'Anjou, who later became King Henri III of France.
In 1588, Ramelli published
Le diverse et artificiose machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli, or
The various and ingenious machines of Captain Agostino Ramelli. The book contains 195 designs, over 100 of which are water-raising machines, such as
water pumps or
water well.
[Brashear, Ronald. Ramelli's Machines. Smithsonian Libraries.] Other designs include
bridges, mills, and a possible forerunner to the
/ref> The bookwheel is one of the most famous designs from this book.
Le diverse et artificiose machine is still printed and sold.
External links
Agostino Ramelli (1588)
Le diverse et artificiose machine del Capitano Agostino Ramelli - digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library
"How an ingenious 400 year old drawing predicted the future" – Video explanation of one of Ramelli's water-pumping machines (Plate 57) and its conceptual similarity to modern axial piston pumps used in car air conditioning
