Chapter Il lavoro degli ingegneri rinascimentali tra realtà e immaginazione

Abstract

During the fifteenth century in Italy and in Europe, craftsmen and engineers became the protagonists of an important cultural innovation. The growing literacy of technicians and the introduction of rigorous graphic codes to drawing the machines favored the consolidation of a speculative dimension of engineering which gave rise to the publication of treatises on techniques. The "culture of the machine", both military and civilian, became increasingly important in Renaissance society until the conditions were created for the consolidation of a progressive mentality. This propensity for innovation and mechanization of work led to the birth of the first offices for the protection the economic exploitation of inventions.