The Bookwheel, invented in 1588 by Italian engineer Agostino Ramelli, was a heavy, 600-pound wooden rotating bookcase that let scholars easily use up to eight open books at once. It had a clever gear system to keep the books upright as the wheel turned by hand, saving time for readers who didn’t have to fetch books from shelves. Featured in Ramelli’s book of machines, it was a creative Renaissance tool for studying, though it’s uncertain how many were actually made.
"Authorship"-in the sense we know it today, individual intellectual effort related to the book as an economic commodity-was practically unknown before the advent of print technology. Medieval scholars were indifferent to the precise identity of the "books" they studied. In turn, they rarely signed even what was clearly their own. They were a humble
... See morenumerous examples documenting slow improvements in the efficiency and power of waterwheels, in greater maneuverability of sails, or in higher productivity and lower use of fuel in metal smelting
