Prague Astronomical Clock (1410 onwards)

Commentary
Prague Astronomical Clock (1410 onwards)

During the late Middle Ages, the main impulse toward the installation of large public clocks came from city governments vying for prestige. The historian of technology Gerhard Dohrn-Van Rossum has found just under five hundred dated first references to public striking clocks for the period from 1300 to 1450. During the first 50 years, a leading role was played by the larger cities of northern Italy. In the subsequent period to about 1370 one can trace the diffusion of public striking clocks to the German lands of the Holy Roman Empire, to the Netherlands, and France. The boom reached its peak during the decade from 1371 to 1380, when nearly eighty European cities can be shown to have installed a new public clock.

Commentary. Philipp Nothaft (May-June 2019)