Bookwheel

[1] To ensure the books remained at a consistent angle, Ramelli incorporated an epicyclic gearing arrangement, a complex device that had only previously been used in astronomical clocks.

Joseph Needham, a historian of Chinese technology, stated that revolving bookcases, though not vertically oriented, originated in China "perhaps a thousand years before Ramelli's design was taken there.

Of the dozens of bookwheels built in the 17th and 18th centuries, 14 are known to survive: in Ghent, Hamburg, Klosterneuburg, Cracow, Lambach, Leiden, Naples (2), Paris, Prague (2), Puebla City, Wernigerode and in Wolfenbüttel.

[9] A group of undergraduate engineering students at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) constructed two bookwheels in 2018 based on Ramelli's design, but using modern tools and processes.

[10] Another modern reproduction was built by the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in Paris, based on their model, to allow people to see how the mechanism is working without causing damage to the original.