The conclusion, that ‘the motive force in birds’ wings is apparently ten thousand times greater than the resistance of their weight,’ is erroneous, of course, but study of the translation from which the foregoing excerpt is taken will show that the error detracts very little from the value of the work itself. Borelli sets out very definitely the mechanism of flight, in such fashion that he who runs may read. His reference to ‘the use of a large vessel,’ etc., concerns the suggestion made by Francesco Lana, who antedated Borelli’s publication of _De Motu Animalium_ by some ten years with his suggestion for an ‘aerial ship,’ as he called it. Lana’s mind shows, as regards flight, a more imaginative twist; Borelli dived down into first causes, and reached mathematical conclusions; Lana conceived a theory and upheld it--theoretically, since the manner of his life precluded experiment.
Francesco Lana, son of a noble family, was born in 1631; in 1647 he was received as a novice into the Society of Jesus at Rome, and remained a pious member of the Jesuit society until the end of his life. He was greatly handicapped in his scientific investigations by the vows of poverty which the rules of the Order imposed on him. He was more scientist than priest all his life; for two years he held the post of Professor of Mathematics at Ferrara, and up to the time of his death, in 1687, he spent by far the greater part of his time in scientific research. He had the dubious advantage of living in an age when one man could cover the whole range of science, and this he seems to have done very thoroughly. There survives an immense work of his entitled, _Magisterium Naturæ et Artis_, which embraces the whole field of scientific knowledge as that was developed in the period in which Lana lived. In an earlier work of his, published in Brescia in 1670, appears his famous treatise on the aerial ship, a problem which Lana worked out with thoroughness. He was unable to make practical experiments, and thus failed to perceive the one insuperable drawback to his project--of which more anon.
Only extracts from the translation of Lana’s work can be given here, but sufficient can be given to show fully the means by which he designed to achieve the conquest of the air. He begins by mention of the celebrated pigeon of Archytas the Philosopher, and advances one or two theories with regard to the way in which this mechanical bird was constructed, and then he recites, apparently with full belief in it, the fable of _Regiomontanus_ and the eagle that he is said to have constructed to accompany Charles V. on his entry into Nuremberg. In fact, Lana starts his work with a study of the pioneers of mechanical flying up to his own time, and then outlines his own devices for the construction of mechanical birds before proceeding to detail the construction of the aerial ship. Concerning primary experiments for this he says:--