Newsletter no. 4-2007

Editors/Redaktion

This newsletter is written in order to spread experiences within the topic of ”historic textiles”. Our ambition is to amuse you and stimulate interest in the 18th Century. As permanent writers you will find Martin Ciszuk, MA in textile history, Laila Durán and Maria Fernström, who all work for the Durán Textiles AB company. We will also have help from colleagues and specialists from several museums and universities. This newsletter will be distributed ten times a year and is free of charge. We hope you will enjoy our articles and offers and help us to spread the letter to friends and colleagues.
Contact: www.durantextiles.com

Detta nyhetsbrev skrivs för att sprida erfarenheter inom ämnet ”historiska textiler” och 1700-talet. Ambitionen är att roa och stimulera intresset. Vi som skriver är Martin Ciszuk Fil.mag textilvetenskap, Laila Durán och Anna Löfgren, samtliga verksamma inom Durán Textiles AB. Till vår hjälp har vi kollegor och specialister från olika muséer och universitet.
Nyhetsbrevet kommer ut tio gånger per år och är helt kostnadsfritt. Vi hoppas ni skall uppskatta våra artiklar och erbjudanden och även sprida informationen vidare till Era vänner.
Kontakt: www.durantextiles.com

The Turk Who Conquered Napoleon

By Bernd Girgsdies.

In the year 1769 a big collection of French, mechanical toys was shown to the Austrian court. The exhibition arouse great attention and everything mechanical became popular.

Soon a man named von Kempelen could show what was going to be the 18th century’s most famous mechanical device: the automatic chess player.

The mechanism was hidden in a big box and the pieces was moved by a full-sized doll dressed in a Turkish dress. The doll wasn’t only a skilful chess player, he could also answer the audiences questions by putting pieces with letters on them together.

Of course the machine was a hoax. Today we know that such advanced mental activity must be performed by electronics, but in the 18th century man hasn’t yet discovered the limitation of mechanics and nobody unmasked the fraud.

In fact, the machine was run by a man inside the box. Under the chessboard magnets were hanging in pieces of strings and since the pieces was made of iron you could easily see from below how the pieces were moved. The only thing the man in the box had to do was to plan the countermoves, and without seeing anything, manoeuvre the marionettes hand so it moved the pieces. Today such a skill would cause more attention than a machine.

The bluff was unveiled in 1854 when the machine was destroyed by fire. By this time the machine had already imposed upon people for generations. Among others it had defeated Napoleon in Paris.

The Turk Who Conquered Napoleon By Bernd Girgsdies.

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The Turk Who Conquered Napoleon
By Bernd Girgsdies.

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