On the Rumor of Machines That Paint Moving Pictures Without the Hand
In my workshop this morning, a most peculiar dispatch reached me — carried, they say, from a time five centuries hence. I set down my silverpoint and read it thrice, as one reads a passage of Pliny that defies reason yet compels belief.
They speak of a device — or rather, a method — called Sora, which generates moving…
On the Alchemy of Intellect and the Quarrel of Its Makers
In my workshop this morning, while I prepared a varnish of walnut oil and ground verdigris, a strange rumor reached me — carried, they say, by a traveler whose provenance I cannot verify. He speaks of a time far hence, the year 2026, when men have built a kind of artificial mind, a machina del pensiero, and that two of…
On the Folly and Glory of Summoning Weather Within Walls
Milan, this fourteenth day of March, in the year of our Lord 1500.
A strange rumor has reached my workshop — carried by what messenger I cannot say, for the paper smells of no ink I recognize, and the hand is mechanical, as if pressed by a stamp of impossible regularity. It speaks of a man from the far north, of Danis…