What if you could design a moving device from paper that invoked logical proofs and God’s attributes to settle religious disputes? Or what if you were able to make something more practical—a paper “machine” that told the time of night so one would know when to administer medication? A man who was considered one of the greatest philosopher-scientists of the 13th and 14th centuries in Europe, Ramon Llull of Majorca, did just this. Llull named them volvelles, from the Latin word volvere, which means ‘to turn’.
Constructed of paper or parchment, volvelles have moving parts made of paper that turn and point to celestial bodies on the timekeeper, or to the attributes of God and arguments for His existence on the mystical volvelle. They resemble astrolabes, which were made of metal and invented much earlier.
A volvelle from Martín Cortés’s 16th century book Breve compendio de la sphera y de la aite de navegar, a seminal text for oceanic exploration. (Source: The Collation)