Codex Atlanticus

CA f. 778 r: Studies on perpetual motion

The sheet probably comes from a dismembered manuscript and the theme is that of perpetual motion. There is depicted a wheel divided into thirty-two sections, alternating one filled with water and an empty one. Given a push to the wheel, the liquid will pour from the filled boxes into the adjacent empty ones, which are in turn loaded proportionally, making the motion of the wheel continue, and so on ad infinitum. The drawings on the right would be sections of a "mobile theater", similar to the one in Padua by Alessandro Benedetti.