In the twentieth year of Queen Elizabeth, a blacksmith named Mark
Scaliot, made a lock consisting of eleven pieces of iron, steel and
brass, all which, together with a key to it, weighed but one grain of
gold. He also made a chain of gold, consisting of forty-three links,
and, having fastened this to the before-mentioned lock and key, he put
the chain about the neck of a flea, which drew them all with ease. All
these together, lock and key, chain and flea, weighed only one grain
and a half.
Oswaldus Norhingerus, who was more famous even than Scaliot for his
minute contrivances, is said to have made 1,600 dishes of turned
ivory, all perfect and complete in every part, yet so small, thin and
slender, that all of them were included at once in a cup turned out
of a pepper-corn of the common size. Johannes Shad, of Mitelbrach,
carried this wonderful work with him to Rome, and showed it to
Pope Paul V., who saw and counted them all by the help of a pair of
spectacles. They were so little as to be almost invisible to the eye.
Johannes Ferrarius, a Jesuit, had in his posession cannons of wood,
with their carriages, wheels, and all other military furniture, all of
which were also contained in a pepper-corn of the ordinary size.
An artist, named Claudius Callus, made for Hippolytus d'Este, Cardinal
of Ferrara, representations of sundry birds setting on the tops of
trees, which, by hydraulic art and secret conveyance of water through
the trunks and branches of the trees, were made to sing and clap their
wings; but, at the sudden appearance of an owl out of a bush of the
same artifice, they immediately became all mute and silent.