Pocket watch
Reloj portátil de bolsillo
- Date
- c. 1510 · confidence medium
- Place
- Nuremberg, Germany
- Credited to
- Peter Henlein
- People
- 👤 Peter Henlein1485–1510
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A mainspring-driven clock with a foliot escapement in a small drum-shaped brass case, weightless and portable enough to be carried on the person. It made timekeeping personal and turned Nuremberg into a clockmaking capital.
Henlein is the 'inventor' by German national tradition (Cochlaeus, 1511), but portable spring-driven clocks existed in Italy and Burgundy before 1500. The oval 'Nuremberg eggs' are later.
What it led to
- Personal time and punctuality as a bourgeois value
- The clockmaking industry of Nuremberg, Augsburg, Geneva and London
- Mechanical miniaturisation and the trade of clockmaker
Built on
- Mechanical weight-driven clockc. 1283
- Mainspring and fuseec. 1430-1450
- Fusee (compensating snail)
Made possible
- Schickard calculating clock1623
- Balance spring (hairspring)1675
- Marine chronometer1735 (H1) / 1759 (H4)
- Huygens's spiral balance-spring clock (watch)
- Wristwatch