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Narratives

The clockwork universe

This elaborate and decorative piece of furniture demonstrates the motions of the solar system. The planets rotate around the central sun, moved at the proper relative speeds by a clockwork mechanism underneath the brass plate.

The instrument once stood in the library of Oxford's All Souls College, with the same two globes that are alongside it now. The orrery and one of the globes were illustrated in a 19th-century engraving of the library (right). The shape above the globe is a cover, which could be lowered for protection.

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