De la rueda de libros a la escritura enciclopédica

Abstract

In 1558, the Italian inventor Agostino Ramelli published the book Le diverse et artificiose machine. Among the extensive number of 195 hydraulic and military machines, one apparatus stands out in particular: a device designed to allow a person to read several books at the same time. In recent publications, this reading machine, known as the “book wheel”, is frequently mentioned as one of the precursors of the hypertext, since it allows jumping from one text to another in the same way as we move between webpages and textual modules. Researchers describe the invention as a reaction to the challenge posed by the enormous quantity of book knowledge, which circulates thanks to another invention, the movable-type printing. Though the book wheel has most probably never been built, it is an artefact that potentially functions as a text-producing machine or, in other words, as a device that promotes a specific type of writing. I intend to read florilegia, encyclopedic works and polyanthea, such as Juan de Aranda’s Lugares communes, or the encyclopedic writing in works such as Guzmán de Alfarache, La pí­cara Justina and Libro de todas las cosas, as virtual products of the book wheel.