Contents

Introduction

Part I: A Legend

•   1     To Set the Stage
•   2     A Miracle and a Vow
•   3     Diego de Alcalá
•   4     An Automaton by Juanelo Turriano
•   5     The Attribution of the Monk
•   6     A Letter
•   7     A Monk’s Opinion

Part II: The Monk

•   8    An Immaculate Object
•   9    The Monk Performs
• 10     A Mechanical Anatomy

Part III: Eight Androids

• 11     Monks, Saints, and Musical Ladies
• 12     A Second Monk?
• 13     A Saint in Budapest
• 14     Three Sister Musicians
• 15     The Vienna Cittern Player
• 16     A Late Arrival from Milan
• 17     The Category Challenge
• 18     The Earliest Free-Walking Androids

Part IV: A Search for Origins

• 19     Craft Guild or Imperial Court?
• 20     Two Masters, Two Cultures: Jakob Bulmann and Juanelo Turriano
• 21     A Nuremburg Clockmaker’s Shop
• 22     The Art Cabinet of Rudolf II
• 23     Searching the Lost and Found
• 24     A Monk’s Opinion, Continued

Part V: A Machine That Prays

• 25     Miracles and Walking Sculptures
• 26     Perpetual Devotion
• 27     The Machine and the Corpse