Giovanni de Fontana

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Quattrocento Minor Characters - Giovanni de Fontana

The Paduan/Venetian inventor/engineer Giovanni Fontana is quite an unusual minor character, in that many different groups of historians know him by different names and accomplishments.

Johannes Fontana // Padlock Historians

  • Inventor of the modern padlock

Giovanni Fontana // Maze Historians

Giovanni Fontana // Virtual Reality Historians

Fontana's manuscripts (large parts of which are written in a simple monoalphabetic cipher):-

  • Bellicorum Instrumentum Liber (1420)

References:-

  • Eugenio Battisti, Giuseppa Saccaro Battisti, Le Macchine Cifrate di Giovanni Fontana, Arcadia, Milano, 1984, pp. 167. [b488] batt 84-1

http://mysite.freeserve.com/philipneal_vms/fontana.html
http://progenlab3.dst.polimi.it/AUTOMA.HTM
http://web.tiscali.it/pirotecnia/storia.htm
Translation by Jorge Stolfi:-

Among the flying dragons and clumsy vehicles, further reports come from the military use of pyrotechnics. Preserved in the National Library of Monaco is a manuscript from 1420, work of the Italian engineer Giovanni de Fontana, where are described war devices of every shape and purpose. Among these, a "magic lantern" which theoretically should project terrible demons, such that would cause enemies to flee, but more important is the sketch of a mobile apparatus, it too designed to scare possible invaders. The drawing shows a witch with bat wings where two rockets, placed besides the head, would have created a swinging motion, while a complicated system of pull ropes controlled by hand determined a synchronous motion of the arms, wings, tail, and horns. To enhance the "chilling" aspect of the character a lighted candle was placed in the intentionally hollow interior. Ignoring the rather questionable terrifying effects, the idea presented two important novelties: the usage of rocket propulsion as kinetic energy, and the artistic shape, both exploited in the wonderful pyrotechnic machines of the Renaissance...
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