The Renaissance Renaissance Inventions

The first mechanical clocks were invented in the late 1200s and early 1300s, near the end of the Middle Ages. With this invention, towns began to keep time with equal hours (24 hours equaling a day).

Galileo, an Italian scientist, discovered the pendulum in 1581. The pendulum greatly improved the constant movement of the hands or bell of a clock. The average error with the pendulum varied only by seconds each day. Before this the error was from 10 to 15 minutes a day. In 1656 Christiaan Huygens used Galileo's idea to build the first pendulum clock.

During the 1500s and 1600s, clockmakers began using coiled springs and screws. This made small clocks and pocket watches possible.

Historians are not certain who invented the first spectacles. Spectacles were invented in Italy in the late thirteenth century, around 1286. A monk preaching in 1306 said they had been invented about twenty years earlier.

Around 1300 the Venetian Glassmaker's Guild made regulations on glasses. They made it illegal for glasses to be made with glass lenses in place of the more valuable rock crystal.

In 1352 eyeglasses were only worn by the well educated, very rich noblemen or well read Italian clergy. At this time a painter named Tommaso da Modena painted a fresco of an older churchman wearing glasses while looking over an old manuscript.

Around 1440 Gutenberg invented the printing press. This spread books far and wide. Once people owned books, reading glasses began to be seen in the hands of the common people. These glasses were made with a variety of materials including wood, lead, copper, bone, leather, and even horn.

In 1623 a Spanish writer named Benito Daza de Valdés published a way to grade lenses by their strength. This improved the trial and error method of trying on different lenses until one pair helped the wearer to see better.

Sir John Harington, godson to Queen Elizabeth, made the first flush toilet in 1596. He put one in his own home and one in the queen's palace. People laughed at his invention, and flush toilets didn't catch on for almost two hundred years.

In 1775 Alexander Cummings reinvented the flush toilet, more commonly called the water closet. Cummings invented the S-trap, a bent pipe that holds water to keep out sewer smells. His toilet also had a sliding valve between the bowl and the trap.

Two years later in 1777 Samuel Prosser applied for and received a patent for a plunger closet. A year later Joseph Bramah invented a valve at the bottom of the bowl that worked on a hinge.

Gunpowder was invented around 850 A.D. By the 1000s the Chinese were using gunpowder in fireworks and weapons.

Gunpowder cannons first appeared in Europe in the 1320s, and cannons were used at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. Most historians think knowledge of gunpowder traveled from China to Europe along trade routes.

The invention of gunpowder greatly changed the way men fought. The Medieval knight could not defend himself against firearms and cannons. Knights were replaced by the foot soldier who carried firearms.

In 1804 William Congreve developed rockets to use during wars.

In the seventeenth century armies such as the English and Dutch began using the flintlock musket.

The first useful microscope was developed in the Netherlands between 1590 and 1608. Three different eyeglass makers are given credit for this invention. The inventor was probably Hans Lippershey who developed the first real telescope, or Hans Janssen and his son Zacharias.

Galileo helped popularize the microscope in the early 17th century. After Robert Hooke published his book Micrographia in 1665 men began to take the microscope seriously.

In the 1670s Antonie van Leeuwenhoek used tiny, powerful lenses to see bacteria for the first time. In the 1800s, improved lenses gave much clearer images, and many advances in medicine and hygiene were made with the microscope.

In 1608 a Dutch eyeglass maker named Hans Lippershey made the first telescope. In 1668 Isaac Newton improved the telescope by using mirrors instead of lenses.

Galileo Galilei was one of the first people to use the telescope to study the heavens. He made many discoveries including that the moon had mountains, valleys, and craters. He also discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter. His discoveries supported Copernicus's idea that the planets revolve around the sun and not around the earth. His discoveries were printed in a book called Starry Messenger in 1610.

The printing press was invented around 1440 by a German named Johannes Gutenberg. Gutenberg was a goldsmith. Before the printing press was invented, monks had to copy everything by hand. Handwritten books took months or years to copy. This made books very expensive.

Ink, movable type, paper, and the press had been invented. Gutenberg creatively combined these inventions to devise the printing press. Gutenberg used the printing press to put ink on hundreds of individual letters. These letters were cast from metal, mostly lead, in a mold that Gutenberg invented. These letters were arranged in words, sentences, then paragraphs. After this stage as many copies as needed could be made quickly. When a different page was needed the individual letters had to be completely rearranged.

The Bible was the first major book printed with movable type in Europe. The Gutenberg Bible was also known as the 42 line Bible from the number of lines on each page. It was printed around 1455 in Mainz, Germany.

Leonardo da Vinci drew ideas for an underwater warship. Leonardo kept his plans secret because he didn't want to make war any more terrifying than it already was.

In 1578 William Bourne began drawing plans for a submarine. His submarine was never built. Bourne's submarine worked by using extra tanks which could be filled so the submarine would submerge. The tanks would be emptied for the submarine to surface.

In 1620 Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutch inventor, built a leather covered rowboat with oars. The oars came out through watertight seals. Twelve people could ride in the submarine. Drebbel was an engineer who worked for King James I of England. Drebbel was the first to discuss the problem of air replenishment while the submarine submerged. Drebbel's submarine could only go down about fifteen feet. It could stay underwater for a couple of hours.

Around 1495 the first paper mill came into operation in England. English artists soon made wallpaper decorated with hand painted designs, stencils, and wood-block prints. For the next 200 years England was a large producer of wallpaper for Europe.

Before wallpaper was invented only the wealthy people could afford to decorate the walls of their castles. They used woven tapestries. The tapestries kept the cold castle walls warmer. The designs woven into the tapestries told stories. The lower class hung cheaper painted cloth imitations for the walls of their homes.