Heat and steam devices with a rotating machine
A flask filled by a coal, a steam-blowing head, and a workshop name
The verso studies heat- and steam-driven effects: a flask (guastada) that draws water up when a burning coal is set on it, and a head-shaped vessel that, filled with water and boiled, blows out only through its mouth and can kindle a fire. A large fan-canopy device on a trestle frame is drawn in the centre, and arithmetical figures run along the lower edge. A name — Vante di Francesco da Castello Fiorentino and companions — is written among the sketches.
On this page
Flask filled with water by a live coal
At the left a flask is described such that a burning coal set upon its bottom will have the power to fill it with water — a demonstration of how heating the vessel draws liquid up into it.
Head that boils water to kindle fire
A head-shaped vessel filled with water to the mouth is described: as the water boils and the steam issues only through the mouth, it has the power to kindle a fire — a jet of steam or hot vapour used as a bellows.
Fan-canopy device on a trestle frame
The centre of the sheet shows a large disc or fan-canopy mounted above a splayed trestle frame carrying a horizontal shaft. It reads as a rotating mechanism, consistent with the heat- and steam-driven effects noted around it.
Vante di Francesco da Castello Fiorentino
Turned a further ninety degrees, the sheet carries a name: Vante di Francesco da Castello Fiorentino and companions — a memorandum of a person or workshop rather than a technical note.