The Calculating Machine of Tito Livio Burattini

The Italian Tito Livio Burattini (biography of Burattini) was a typical universal genius of the late European Renaissance. He was a skilled architect, astronomer, mathematician, optician, mechanic, etc.

In 1659 he created a calculating device (so called ciclografo), which has been donated to the Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Burattini apparently was aware of the Pascalene, and decided to create a similar device. Presently the machine (see the photo below) is kept in the Florence, in Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza.

The calculating machine of Tito Livio Burattini from 1659 (© Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza)

The device (complete with a wooden case) consists of a thin sheet of brass with length of 20 cm, upon which surface are mounted 18 disks. All the disks are connected 2 by 2, which means, that every upper (bigger) disk is connected to the lower (smaller) disk. By that means, carrying of numbers can be done only from an upper (bigger) disk to the lower (smaller) one, but not between different digital positions of a number.

The lower six pairs of disks are decimal (10 graduations—from 0 to 9), while the upper pairs of disks are graduated from 1 to 12, from 1 to 19, and from 1 to 7 respectively (from the left to the right), in order to be used for monetary calculations.