Mercury, water and candle clocks of the Libros del saber de astronomía
Relojes de mercurio, agua y vela de los Libros del saber de astronomía
- Date
- 1276-1279 · confidence high
- Place
- Toledo, Castile-La Mancha, Spain
- Credited to
- Isaac ibn Sid (Rabiçag) and collaborators, for Alfonso X
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Alfonso X's Libros del saber de astronomía describe several clocks, among them the “quicksilver clock”, in which mercury passes between the compartments of a drum and regulates its rotation. They are one of the fullest accounts of hydraulic and fluid-regulated clockwork in medieval Europe.
Mercury clocks are known from an earlier Andalusi tradition (al-Zarqali, Ibn Khalaf al-Muradi) and the text is a description; there is no certainty that the apparatus was built to the design described. A link to the mechanical clock is a hypothesis in the historiography, not a demonstrated fact.
What it led to
- transmission of Andalusi hydraulic clockwork to Christian Europe
- an experiment in regulating motion with a fluid other than water
- horological models preceding mechanical weight-driven clocks