Jessica Keating is Assistant Professor of Art History at Carleton College.

“This book, presenting the ‘curiosities’ that we now call automata, unwinds a large network of interconnected early modern phenomena: the fraught world of religious contests, augmented by intense political rivalries; the connections between court centers of power, including connections between Germany and faraway Istanbul and Delhi; and the origins of early princely collecting in ‘curiosity cabinets.’ Here art and nature rivaled each other yet intertwined through technology and craftsmanship, powered by Augsburg watchmakers. Keating’s meticulous research newly restores a nearly vanished art form to its rightful place—as the bearer of cultural values and courtly prestige at the very heart of ceremonial court performances. In the process, she arouses our own fascination, echoing those responses to privileged displays by these moving metal devices as they performed before early modern monarchs.”—Larry Silver, co-author of Rembrandt’s Faith

• ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgments1. Early Modern Automata: An Abridged History2. Ever More Variations on the Imperial Theme at the Court of Rudolf II3. The Gifts That Keep on Giving4. A Figure of Speech5. Habsburg-Ottoman Diplomatic Machinery6. Metamorphosis at the Mughal CourtConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex

Jessica Keating is Assistant Professor of Art History at Carleton College.

“This book, presenting the ‘curiosities’ that we now call automata, unwinds a large network of interconnected early modern phenomena: the fraught world of religious contests, augmented by intense political rivalries; the connections between court centers of power, including connections between Germany and faraway Istanbul and Delhi; and the origins of early princely collecting in ‘curiosity cabinets.’ Here art and nature rivaled each other yet intertwined through technology and craftsmanship, powered by Augsburg watchmakers. Keating’s meticulous research newly restores a nearly vanished art form to its rightful place—as the bearer of cultural values and courtly prestige at the very heart of ceremonial court performances. In the process, she arouses our own fascination, echoing those responses to privileged displays by these moving metal devices as they performed before early modern monarchs.”—Larry Silver, co-author of Rembrandt’s Faith

• ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgments1. Early Modern Automata: An Abridged History2. Ever More Variations on the Imperial Theme at the Court of Rudolf II3. The Gifts That Keep on Giving4. A Figure of Speech5. Habsburg-Ottoman Diplomatic Machinery6. Metamorphosis at the Mughal CourtConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex