The mechanical galleon

A History of the World in 100 Objects

BBC

History

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 September 2010

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Neil MacGregor's world history as told through things. This week he is exploring the impact of Western European travel, trade and conquest between 1450 and 1600. He kicks off with an exquisite miniature version of the sort of high tech vessel that was to take Europeans right around the world. Today's object is a small clockwork version of the type of galleon that the Spanish sent against England in the Armada and that they sent across the high seas. This one was made for a grand dinner table - it could move, make music, tell the time and fire tiny cannons. Neil discusses the significance of this new breed of sailing ships and describes the political state that this galleon symbolises - the Holy Roman Empire. The marine archaeologist Christopher Dobbs compares the tiny galleon to the Mary Rose in Portsmouth and the historian Lisa Jardine considers the European fascination with mechanics and technology throughout the 16th Century. Producer: Anthony Denselow Music research specifically for the Akan drum: Michael Doran

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this episode of a history of the world in a hundred objects from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.0	The magnificent ship is
0:15.0	ship is mastered, rigged and ready to sail.
0:18.0	The lookouts are standing in the crows nests.
0:21.0	High on the stern sits the Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation,
0:26.1	and in front of him his grandest subjects parade one after another turning and making
0:30.9	obeisance. Deep in the hull of the ship an organ plays music. Then the
0:36.7	cannons fire in an explosion of noise and smoke and the Imperial Galleon moves majestically forward.
0:44.0	Well, that's how it was meant to be, but in fact all this is happening in miniature.
0:50.0	In this programme I'm with an elaborately crafted model of a sailing ship made of
0:55.1	gilded copper and iron which stands about three feet high. It was designed not to sail
1:00.5	the seas but to trundle across a very grand table.
1:04.4	It's a decoration, but it's also a clock and a musical box,
1:08.8	all in the shape of a mastered galleon,
1:11.4	of the kind that in the 16th century developed across Europe to expand trade and to make war.
1:17.0	Its intricate inner workings actually did create noise, smoke and movement.
1:27.0	Nowadays the ship is silent, calmly birthed in the British Museum, yet it still looks
1:35.4	magnificent. This gilded galleon is one of the great executive toys of the
1:40.6	European Renaissance. I just think humankind is fascinating. of the
1:43.7	European Renaissance. I just think humankind is fascinated with things that move and turn
1:47.8	under their own steam that you can wind something up and it goes without you touching it.
1:54.4	We just love it.
	...

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