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This tall ivory column was the brain-child of Hans Schlottheim and Egidius Lobenigk. It’s a masterpiece of technical wizardry, combining no less than three technological masterpieces characteristic of the Late German Renaissance. In the first place, it’s a superb example of the art of turning – chiselling a piece of wood, or in this case, ivory, while it is being mechanically rotated. It’s also a figure clock... and an automaton that produces music! The base contains bellows and a small organ that plays waltzes. Connected to the mechanism that drives the organ is a moving belt on which three pages are conveyed towards a door-opening. A mechanism that makes the trumpeters on the balcony raise their arms is also linked to the mechanism that drives the organ. This marvellous creation also has another two mechanisms and a timepiece inserted into the bottom of the column. They trigger movements inside the sphere and on top of it.

Inside the sphere are seven pages serving a princely dinner party. Three of the gentlemen and two of the ladies are even able to raise their hands to their mouths!

By the way, the clock really works, but it has an extraordinarily complicated mechanism. The numbers are engraved around the sphere. The clock has only one hand, a baton held by a little angel. At the stroke of the hour, the percussionists and trumpeters play their instruments – as if by magic.

The concealed mechanisms that produce this music, the movements of the figures and the working of the clock are fine examples of late sixteenth-century technology. They brilliantly exploit all available space and create complicated energy transfer mechanically. The Germans have a word for such a miracle of human ingenuity and craftsmanship: they call it a Wunderwerk!