January 2011
11 posts
4 tags
3 tags
3 tags
3 tags
“The Middle ages, which abounded with legends of alchemists and magicians and their synthetic creations, also produced genuine automata. Unverifiable stories attribute to Albertus Magnus (1193?-1280), the Bavarian Scholastic philosopher, the making of an automaton that was ultimately smashed by Saint Thomas Aquinas after he had denounced it as the work of the devil. This automaton was...
4 tags
2 tags
4 tags
2 tags
Don't call it a keytar
The “Orphika,” a keyboard instrument designed to be worn on a strap over the shoulder, invented in Vienna in 1795 by Carl Leopold Röllig.
Image from Alte Musikinstrumente: ein Leitfaden für Sammler by Hermann Ruth-Sommer (Berlin, 1916)
4 tags
3 tags
4 tags