16th Century Flying Machines
Sabbattini’s Cloud Flying Machine
Sabbattini described several different flying effects to
create a cloud with a person in it desend directly on to the stage from the
heavans. Most of them required a cloud to mask the mechanism. It required a
vertical track mounted on the rear partition and horizontal beam with a cloud
at its end that could be pulled up and down in the track by a winch.
Sabbattini described a similar machine [#50] that allowed a person to be lowered to the stage "without using a cloud so that he may immediately walk about and dance." The technology for this device was very crude compared to the effects that followed a few years later.
17th Century Flying Machines
Palatina Manuscript Flying Machine
Manuscript 3708 at the Biblioteca Palatina includes a drawing that
shows several flying machines that may be placed anywhere onstage and do not
require masking the apparatus with clouds. One of the devices consists of a
sled with a graduated shaft that can be pulled across the overhead beam of the
theatre.
