Of course, the authorities knew this too, and would often take steps precisely to prevent this. The most advanced response was, needless to say, in Florence. There, when a serious crime was discovered, three cannon shots were fired as an alarm. At once, the city gates were closed to anyone without a special permit to leave, river traffic along the Arno was halted and barges were inspected before they could pass on, while the officials of neighbouring villages would ring the church bells to warn local farmers to assemble to help search for fugitives.

Although it was not impossible to lie low inside the city, this was a remarkably organised system for its time. Just think how this might be in the 1510 setting, with hot-air balloons and gliders lofted to scan the surrounding territory and clockwork carriages clicking and clattering along the roads in pursuit. Of course, a criminal who has also prepared himself could well seek to flee by air, or perhaps using a clockwork bicycle of his own…

The defensive towers of San Gimignano, symbols of violent civic rivalry. AKG Images/Erich Lessing

With the Arab Spring ongoing we are naturally inclined to think of democracy and despotism as polar opposites. After the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt and with the civil war in Libya still raging the authoritarian regimes of Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi seem to stand in stark contrast to the democratic aspirations of protesters and rebels who have been driven to revolt by worsening economic conditions and decades of repression. Indeed for most people watching events in North Africa and the Middle East democracy is commonly associated with ideas of liberty, material satisfaction, individual rights and domestic peace; despotism is linked with ideas of oppression, injustice, want and simmering resentment.

Specifically, their 1572 map of Venice:

and their equally fine map of Milan:

and of the rather smaller port of Ostia:

It would be terribly easy to ‘clockpunk it up’, with spring-loaded muscles and the like. But quite frankly, it is amazing enough as it stands. But it does raise other questions, such as who is the unsung genius behind the arm, one of the clockpunk mechanici of the Florentine Republic or someone else independently following along the same path. At that time he was a mercenary captain, and indeed would fall foul of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1512; might he have had contact with some Italian condottieri?

Saturday June 17, Recess, NYC: more details here. Assassino!

Why do people not understand the importance of medical science? You did not account for the feverish and illogical reactions of parents when you began to dissect the bodies of dead children Do they not understand how this can advance our knowledge of the human body, its diseases and cures? You fled Munich when they burnt down your hospital, terribly scarred. Now you wear the traditional, if now rather antiquated plague-doctor’s mask to hide your ghastly visage, and a new arm – a wondrously-engineered clockwork engine of wood, brass and sinew – in place of your ruined left. In Florence you have at last found a haven of scientific exploration, and are determined to continue your experiments, even if you do still flinch at an open flame and are still grappling with the concept of ‘public relations’…

And, of course, it allowed me to include a clockpunk taser in the form of the wind-up Morpheus Rod.

CharSh-6-Dietrich

This is what a lot of talent and a lot of money could buy you in 1585 – just think what could be done with the admixture of some clockpunk. However, what it does show is how widespread was the passion for clockwork in the Renaissance, this magic which could create self-propelled automata…

Pope Julius II in Rome calls the current government in Florence and the new scientific revolution godless challenges to the Mother Church. You admit you are worried by talk of engines that think and automata that walk, but you have refused to abandon your god-fearing flock, and find that a spring-operated church bell rings as sweetly as one rung by hand. In any case, since it came to light that you also dabble in the science of alchemy – which you see as just the exploration of God’s mysteries, whatever Rome may say – your old enemy the corrupt Bishop Pazzi, now one of the senior figures in the Inquisition, is out for your blood. Working in Florence allows you to continue to do God’s work and ensure His presence even in the midst of this new, scientific world. And keeps you safely away from Rome.

One of the interesting challenges with him was avoiding also loading him up with clockpunk paraphernalia, while still giving him as much in the way of cool toys as the others. Hence his Alchemical Compendiary, his reliquary and his purely political asset, a badge of the Venetian State Inquisition (which wasn’t at all he same as the Catholic Inquisition, but was rather the feared Venetian Republic secret police). His goal of proving that the Alchemical Arts are a gift of God, not the Devil would be a life’s work, but it does give him something for which to strive!

One interesting potential conflict, which might have been a good theme in a long-term campaign but which I’m glad didn’t arise in the context of the convention game, would be how he feels about Mordechai. A Jew and a technologist: would Taddeo see him as a kindred spirit, testing the limits of his culture, or would he rather not be able to see beyond his cultural blinkers, ironically cleave to a persecution of the Jews even while he rails against the persecution of alchemists…?

CharSh-5-Taddeo