Figure 51: Simon Sturtevant's "Heuretica" (1612)

 

 

see also: Zur Geschichte des Modelldenkens und des Modellbegriffs

 

 

Simon Sturtevant  defines Heuretica as "the Art of inuentions, teaching how to find new, and to iudge of the old".

This doctrine of invention consists of a real and a technical part. The first consists of "the instruments and reall things which belong to the inuentions", the latter concerns "the dexterous habit and faculty" of the craftsmen. Inventions themselves can be differentiated by „magnitude ... greatnesse or quantity".

 

Three kinds of models result:

·        moddle,

·        protoplast and

·        mechanick.

The "moddle" is a "Mechanick", which represents and shows on a little base the parts and contours of an invention without really functioning. That means we cannot expect a model of a windmill to grind corn.

Such a model can be smaller, but also  - in the case of showing details – be larger as the thing showed. It can be drawn or painted (and then is „superficiall“) or „reall“ as e. g. a model ship.

 

Real models are to be improved and guide the craftsman and his back workers to manufacture the final object, the „Grand Mechanick“. A prestage of it is the „Protoplast“ – today: prototype – which fulfills all functions of the final device and works productive, but ist open for further refinements and adaptations to special condidions. The very first Protoplast of a group of machines or apparatus is the "Archetype of the Protoplast", e. g. the first windmill which was in the first place capable to grind corn.

 

In an additional chapter Sturtevant gives "Cannons or Rules seruing to iudge of the goodnesse" of an invention or an improvement, wherefore he develops a differentiated theory of aequivalence using the criteria Equi-sufficiencie, Equi-cheapness, Equi-excellency.

 

From Simon Sturtevant: Metallica; or the Treatise of Metallica. Briefly comprehending the doctrine of diverse new metallical inventions. London: Eld 1612; Reprints London: Eyre and Spottiswoode 1858 in a collection of patent specifications; Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum/ Norwood, N. J.: W. J. Johnson 1975 (chapter „Heuretica").