Collection of Models
Clock mechanism
Palazzina Uzielli, Mechanical clocks section
Project and realization:
IBM Italia, 1952
Model from:
Leonardo da Vinci, Codice Atlantico, f. 964r
Carved wood, cotton thread , iron, brass
cm 110,5 x 35,5 x 45
Description:
This model is the three-dimensional reconstruction from a drawing of Leonardo’s in the Codex Atlanticus. It is the mechanism inside a clock which served to regulate the speed at which the weight descended.
Leonardo and his contemporaries called it the “tempo”, (time), a word which in addition to its most immediate meaning also denotes the beating or marking of time. Nowadays this device is called an “escapement”.