Ramelli’s book wheel – a 16th century machine designed to hold several books (picture)

This stunning machine was invented by an Italian engineer Agostino Ramelli in the late 16th century. The idea of a book wheel that would rotate books in front of a user, was revealed in his book The Various and Ingenious Machines of Captain Agostino Ramelli, published in 1588.

Ramelli planned to use epicyclic gearing — a system that had at that point been used only in astronomical clocks — to ensure that the shelves bearing the wheel’s books (more than a dozen of them) would remain at the same angle no matter the wheel’s position.

Via The Atlantic.