Rome. Architect and engineer Giovanni Branca publishes Le Macchine (The Machines), with 77 woodcuts of mechanical devices. One of them (the 25th) is a rotating steam engine for pulverizing gunpowder. It was probably never built; it was merely a thought experiment. There is also another precursor: Taqi ad-Din, who lived in Istanbul, who had already described a primitive steam turbine for roasting meat in his al-Turuq al-saniyya fi l-alat al-ruhaniyya (The Sublime Methods of Spiritual Machines).
