Taccola

Taccola's work was widely studied and copied by later Renaissance engineers and artists, among them Francesco di Giorgio, and Leonardo da Vinci.

[3] As an adult, he pursued a varied career in Siena, working in such diverse jobs as notary, university secretary, sculptor, superintendent of roads and hydraulic engineer.

[10] Drawn with black ink on paper and accompanied by hand-written annotations, Taccola depicts in his work a multitude of 'ingenious devices' in hydraulic engineering, milling, construction and war machinery.

[17] Taccola's drawings show him to be a man of transition: While his subject matter is already that of later Renaissance artist-engineers, his method of representation still owes much to medieval manuscript illustration.

[25] The work of Taccola, named the 'Sienese Archimedes', stands at the beginning of the tradition of Italian Renaissance artist-engineers, with a growing interest in technological matters of all kinds.

[7] Taccola's drawings were copied and served as a source of inspiration by such as Buonacorso Ghiberti, Francesco di Giorgio, and perhaps even Leonardo da Vinci.

[8] Of special historical importance are his drawings of the ingenious lifting devices and reversible-gear systems which Brunelleschi devised for the construction of the dome of the Florence cathedral,[27] at the time the second widest in the world.

[28] Interest in Taccola's work, however, practically ceased some time after his death until the late 20th century,[3] one reason perhaps being that his treatises circulated only as hand-copied books, with at least three of them remaining extant today.