In 1505, Martin Löffelholz, a Nuremberg patrician (i.e. a member of the city's ruling families) and knight, began to put together a book. Not a diary, not a family chronicle - a tool book. He drew what occupied his mind: drills with interchangeable blades. Threads and the tools to cut them. A workbench with a vise. A swivel chair on casters. A spiral staircase that can be swung out of the way. A crossbow, taken apart into its individual parts. A cradle whose rockers are filled with mercury.
Today the book is in Kraków. It has been fully digitized and is in the public domain - and yet in more than 500 years no one has ever read it in full. There is no transcription, no edition, no translation.
