| People (and scholars) have been fascinated by automata since Antiquity: automata have often been related to the idea of creation, suggesting that man could build another being, though artificial, by means of his competences and knowledge, forcing or imitating natural laws.;Human interest about automata however seems not to be constant along the centuries: we assist to an increase of number of studies, and quotations, mainly in periods in which big and rapid technological development is in action, while in technological stagnation periods, references inevitably decrease.;This study covers the part of the automata history that ranges from the Antiquity to the Renaissance, due to the strong interdependence of design and content, recurring during the considered centuries, as it will be more widely discussed in paragraph 1.2.3. |
